News

Wal-Mart, Amazon eliminating 'wrap rage'

November 28, 2011

Too much packaging leads to "wrap rage," according to Amazon.com Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The companies are working together to encourage manufacturers to change their packaging to cut waste and alleviate the frustration felt when a product is difficult to open, according to Bloomberg.

"We've gotten e-mails from customers who've purchased scissors in a clamshell, which would require another pair of scissors to open the package," Nadia Shouraboura, Amazon's vice president of global fulfillment, said in the story.

About one-third of all consumer trash sent to landfills is packaging, which translates to more than 800 pounds of packaging waste each year per U.S. consumer, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

From the story:

Amazon kicked off its “Frustration-Free Packaging” initiative in 2008 with 19 items from Mattel and its Fisher-Price brand, Microsoft Corp. and memory-card maker Transcend Information Inc. It has grown to 80,000 products this year, with more than 12 million items expected to ship under the program. Amazon wants to at least triple that number next year.

To help it reach that goal, the retailer is contacting more manufacturers that get poor customer feedback about their packaging. Amazon is also sending engineers to help companies improve their designs.

By 2013, Wal-Mart plans to reduce packaging by 5 percent compared with 2008 levels, saving an estimated $3.4 billion annually.

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