The other day the mail carrier dropped off a 19″ x 16″ padded plastic envelope. The return address said “Sears”, but I couldn’t think of anything I’d recently ordered from them.

I opened it up and discovered that it contained four, 14″ x 12″ padded plastic envelopes.

After opening the first envelope, I remembered that weeks earlier I’d ordered the service and install manuals for the stove that was already in the house when we moved in.

One of the envelopes contained only a single sheet of paper: a schematic for the stove.

At this point I’m pretty peeved. I’ve got five envelopes made of plastic that I can’t recycle or reuse.

Then I got to noticing that the stack of paper I had was pretty light, possibly lighter than the weight of the packaging itself. I don’t know what the postage charge was, but the thought of paying to have stuff shipped to me that I can’t use or recycle really makes me cranky.

So I broke out the postal scale.

Stove documentation, 6.5oz:

Packaging, 7.5oz:

That’s 7.5 oz of plastic mailers to protect 6.5 oz of paper. I paid twice the postage for unnecessary packaging that will end up in some landfill.

Thanks, Sears!

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