We buy “things” from Amazon or some other retailer. These “things” are wrapped in a type of plastic that will take thousands of years, if not longer, to break down. The “thing”, housed in its plastic container, goes inside a box with a pretty design on the outside. That box goes into a cardboard box that fits reasonably well. That box goes into a bigger shipping box, which is quite a bit too big, so more paper or styrofoam peanuts are added to fill the extra space inside the outermost box. They ship the big box to us by flying it accoss the country in a big jet along with thousands of other “things”, destroying the ozone and polluting the precious air we all need to breath. Eventually the big box arrives at our door. We open it, taking out all the subsequent smaller boxes. Eventually we get to the “thing” we wanted. After a while we decide the “thing” isn’t so great after all, so we discard it, or ship it back, reversing the whole process. At the end of the day, if we are conscientious, all that cardboard is recycled and reused… the fancy plastic container and the “thing” end up in a landfill.
