This is not something I enjoy writing about, but as gadget fans, it’s our duty to put pressure on companies to try and minimise the environmental impact of shipping our favourite products. The latest villain is Madman Entertainment, who shipped a copy of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law to reader Kieran in a monstrously oversized box.
UPDATE: Received an official comment from Madman about this.And if that wasn’t bad enough, the packaging included a scrunched up ball of paper to “pad” the DVD, and the invoice was, in Kieran’s own words, “scrunched up in a ball along with the packing paper to form part of the ‘insulation’”.
Fail, Madman Entertainment. Fail.
UPDATE: So here’s the official comment from Madman:
To whom it may concern,
Appreciate your feedback regarding the packaging of your recently purchased Madman product. We welcome feedback of this sort and are committed to continual improvement in all areas of our business, most particularly in the manner in which we package and dispatch our product.
Just wanted to offer the following response which may assuage some of the comments.
All of the packaging we use is recyclable and is made from recycled materials. The box in question is actually the most efficient and environmentally friendly packaging we have that still ensures security of product in transit and is much more environmentally efficient than utilising bubble wrap or padded plastic to securely transport product to our customers.
Madman is committed to using sustainable packaging and we are constantly reviewing our dispatch and packaging procedures to ensure they are compliant with business and environmental requirements. Our carbon footprint is something Madman takes extremely seriously and as a business we regularly engage in activities that support the environment, such as company tree planting days, a company wide recycling policy on all paper, plastic and associated products including ink cartridges etc. We also enlisted an environmental consultant throughout the first half of 2008 who worked with the company for 6 months to put in place a series of procedures that have allowed us to run a more sustainable and environmentally sound business (I am happy to specify if required).
Again, we thank you for your feedback as it aids and informs our commitment to continual improvement.
If you’ve got an entry for our Shipping Hall of Shame, let us know at tips@gizmodo.com.au.
[Thanks Kieran!]
Rebecca
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 3:30 PMNot to be rude, i understand environmental impact is a huge issue but all of the components in the above look fairly recyclable. doesn’t that lower environmental impact?
KraazyCraig
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 3:31 PMI got something just as bad from Madman the other day. I had ordered a few items which were shipped out, one was on backorder though. It was just a small manga comic, probably just smaller than a dvd case and it ended up coming in a box with scrunched up paper exactly like whats been discribed above
Rachard Starky
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 3:33 PMSo – you’re complaining about receiving something you either purchased because you desired it, or received for free because you’re lucky, and that it was undamaged and arrived safely, and was in packaging that’s easily re-usable, or easily recyclable?
Sheesh – doesn’t life always just kick you when you’re down?
DC
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 3:53 PMThat’s Harvey’s final volume, the Death of Harvey. A fitting casket! Have some respect, Gizmodo! :P
steve
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 4:12 PMThe inconvenience of physical media combined with the inferiority of digital media, it’s brilliant!
Gryfter
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 4:48 PMI’m sure the very same customer who is complaining about the packaging would be complaining if the DVD was sent in an envelope and damaged in transit. The box is pretty small… Doesn’t look too much bigger than the actual dvd. And surely the brown paper is more environmentally friendly than the Bubble Wrap used by other companies.
boc
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 4:54 PMSeriously, are you still do ranting about this?
It’s a cardboard box. It can be recycled. Or is this reader adamantly against recycling?
Let me know when companies start shipping their products in a lead-lined chest filled with mercury. That’s something to complain about.
A cardboard box? Wow, must be a slow news day.
url404
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 5:19 PMThey just wanted to make sure he got that thing they sent him.
poo
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 5:22 PMYou guys understand the difference and benefit of reuse over recycle right?
Yes, the box is too big, yes, it’s unnecessary, but so long as it isn’t a brand new box, the environmental impact is non existent; in fact it would impact the environment to a far greater extent to use a newly recycled smaller box in its place…
Recycle is old school – reuse will save the environment – recycle is just a word that makes us feel good about huge corporations who ‘do the right thing for the environment’.
ff7_freak
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 9:34 PMMaybe that is the smallest avalible packaging they have, if the process is automated then there is obviously going to be a minimun size for pagaging to be able to be used in the process. Also, Madman Entertainment has a flat shipping rate of $4 for any amount of items purchased from them. the actual packaging for an item such as this would probably be more than this, and for more items, it would be considerably more.
So in reality, Madman is trying to help their customers
Matt
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 11:08 PMWho cares?
Exocet
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 11:13 PMThe issue isn’t the physical make-up of the contents, but the excessive size. Oversized boxes mean less goods shipped by trucks (airspace-vs-product space) and therefore more trucks delivering the same amount of goods. Shrink the packaging, reduce the number of trucks on the road.
balabala
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 11:58 PMI’ve received all my orders in this kind of box, I guess MM has the same box size for small dvd orderso they don’t have to make many different size of box, save time and money i guess.
as far as my dvds arrive safety, other thing I don’t care much.
especially this time: christmas is very busy, so I think it’s easy to understand why they packing like that.
and one more thing, I don’t have dvd shelf so I can store all of my dvds in that carton box, very useful, it fits perfectly well with my dvds.
Laurence
Friday, December 12, 2008 at 2:36 AMI received my madman dvd’s today (Also spent up big on their 50% sale last week). From the looks of it, I received the same size boxed. However my difference was the box was stuffed full of 10 dvds and 3 tshirts. So I guess they just use the same size box for everything.
The only thing I had a problem with the shipment, was the invoice half hanging out of the box when it arrived.
psy
Friday, December 12, 2008 at 9:52 AMmust be a slow news day heh.
What environmental impact?
The whole thing can be recycled.
Fail. Gizmodo. Fail.
Gryfter
Friday, December 12, 2008 at 4:34 PMSeems like Madman addressed all your concerns Gizmodo and Kieran. I’m interested on what you have to say now and how you would change things for the better?
Robin
Saturday, December 20, 2008 at 10:24 PMTo Kieran.
You are the EPIC failure here, you critisize Madman’s packaging when every single bit of it can be recycled?
Fucking give them some credit, Gizmodo is the FAILURE here
J. Boulter
Friday, May 29, 2009 at 3:29 PMNo offense but I’d rather something I order to come in a box that’s well packed then a DVD sized envelope with bubble wrap around it because at least then it has a high chance of not being damaged in transit.
Last year I bought a game online from the US and the idiots had a high environmental policy so it was packed in nothing more than a envelope they had made out of scraps of hemp cloth. what i ordered was an original gameboy game which I had forked out more money for because it came its its original cardboard box.. you can only image how ruined it turned up in the mail with such poor packing.
So all in all I’d say stop your bitching about madman’s quality packing.