Amazon Chief Exec, Jeff Bezos, announced the initiative yesterday in a letter on the firm’s home page, noting Amazon was "working with leading manufacturers to deliver products inside smaller, easy to open, recyclable, cardboard boxes with less packaging material".
According to the Washington Post, over 6,000 Americans were treated in emergency rooms for injuries resulting from difficult plastic packaging in 2004 alone.
But now bloody fingers and loose teeth could be avoided on certain products including Microsoft mice, Fisher-Price digital cameras, memory cards and a bunch of Mattel toys. Bezos says he plans to expand the initiative to all Amazon products but "It will take many years”.
Kicking out the cumbersome clamshell cases and replacing them with smaller, recyclable cardboard boxes isn’t just good for punters, its win-win for everyone.
Amazon will save a packet on shipping costs because of reduced weight and bulk, manufacturer will save on packaging costs and hopefully less bits of plastic will end up dumped in landfills (or sticking out of people's eyeballs).
So, to wrap things up, if you want to see the 19 products getting the frustration free treatment, click here . But if you’re planning on ordering anything else from Amazon anytime soon, you may want to check out this wiki on how to open those infuriating plastic clamshell packages safely.
Wrap rage cured with frustration free packaging
By
Sylvie Barak
on Nov 5, 2008 6:22AM
If you suffer from 'Wrap-Rage', Amazon believes it has just the thing to cure you. The online retail giant has just launched 'Frustration-Free Packaging' to avoid punters ripping their hands to shreds as they wrestle with impenetrable plastic clamshells.
