X-series kits go semi green....
Jul 27, 2007 21:04:05 GMT
Post by PinkFloyd on Jul 27, 2007 21:04:05 GMT
Inspired by Graham Slee's recent excursion into "green" territory I have decided to go semi green with the X-series mod kits I supply.
I was printing off some manuals a while back and thought to myself "what a waste of paper!" Not only the paper.... there's the ink, the electricity to power the printer, the staples, the plastic document holder I put the manuals in, the additional "weight" of the manuals when shipped with the kits.... it all adds up.... why waste trees and resources when all I have to do is e-mail the manuals in PDF format........
So that's the way I'll be doing it from now on, when someone orders a kit I'll e-mail them the relevant PDF and ship just the parts. This is better in a few ways..... A) the customer receives the instructions instantly and has plenty of time to read them before the parts arrive B) It saves me time printing them out, stuffing them into a plastic folder and then into a Jiffy bag C) It saves on paper D) it saves electricity E) It saves ink F) many more reasons I can't think of at the moment!
I've also been going through an obscene amount of bubblewrap, an unnecessary amount of bubblewrap.... this stuff is expensive and not earth friendly. There's a local paper bank where people deposit their newspapers so from now on I'm going to loot the local paper bank and wrap everything up in newspaper.... packing is an artform and, believe me, newspaper (if employed correctly) is one of the very best packing materials and it's free!
Recipients of a newspaper padded package also get the added bonus of being able to read the local news (which may be of interest to someone living abroad) I will only ship using local papers (John O' Groats journal / Caithness Courier etc.) and will also do my best to provide pages of interest to the customer when packaging..... if you're interested in sport I'll send you the local sports page, interested in house prices I'll send you the property pages etc. Always hundreds of papers in the paper bank so seems a good idea to reuse them
The more I think about it, the amount of unnecessary plastic packaging that's going about is just obscene... everything seems to be coated with plastic from Apples to headphones to bacon to disposable nappies.... we're living in a shrink wrapped world and it's absolutely unnecessary.
When I first started supplying kits I used to actually "make" boxes out of old random pieces of cardboard and would stuff them with anything that came to hand... the e-mails I received commenting on the "wonderful packaging" were plentiful... the more popular the kits became the more I have tended to ship using bubbles and state of the art packaging.... funny though, nobody says "nice packaging" these days (even though it's 100% failsafe and would withstand a nuclear attack) I think they expect the convenience of bubbles and tape and perfect looking packages.... time to go back to basics and ship using my traditional "zany" use what you have to hand method of packaging.... I miss the compliments
The kits themselves are green (comply to ROHS) but I urge the customer to use a good leaded solder.... unleaded, IMO, sounds bloody awful.... I supply 2 metres of superb quality 60 / 40 leaded with the kits and I recommend you use it, it will provide a much "greener" joint in that it will last forever and won't suffer tin pest after a couple of years and find its way into a landfill.... Longevity / quality, IMO, is "green"....... something that lasts a lifetime..... I don't consider disposable / throwaway "landfill friendly"crap as "green".... quite the opposite in fact, if it never finds it's way into a landfill then it is truly green.
Right, I've rambled on enough I've got 8 people to send a new "green" PDF manual to and have got a bit of paper bank surfing to do
I was printing off some manuals a while back and thought to myself "what a waste of paper!" Not only the paper.... there's the ink, the electricity to power the printer, the staples, the plastic document holder I put the manuals in, the additional "weight" of the manuals when shipped with the kits.... it all adds up.... why waste trees and resources when all I have to do is e-mail the manuals in PDF format........
So that's the way I'll be doing it from now on, when someone orders a kit I'll e-mail them the relevant PDF and ship just the parts. This is better in a few ways..... A) the customer receives the instructions instantly and has plenty of time to read them before the parts arrive B) It saves me time printing them out, stuffing them into a plastic folder and then into a Jiffy bag C) It saves on paper D) it saves electricity E) It saves ink F) many more reasons I can't think of at the moment!
I've also been going through an obscene amount of bubblewrap, an unnecessary amount of bubblewrap.... this stuff is expensive and not earth friendly. There's a local paper bank where people deposit their newspapers so from now on I'm going to loot the local paper bank and wrap everything up in newspaper.... packing is an artform and, believe me, newspaper (if employed correctly) is one of the very best packing materials and it's free!
Recipients of a newspaper padded package also get the added bonus of being able to read the local news (which may be of interest to someone living abroad) I will only ship using local papers (John O' Groats journal / Caithness Courier etc.) and will also do my best to provide pages of interest to the customer when packaging..... if you're interested in sport I'll send you the local sports page, interested in house prices I'll send you the property pages etc. Always hundreds of papers in the paper bank so seems a good idea to reuse them
The more I think about it, the amount of unnecessary plastic packaging that's going about is just obscene... everything seems to be coated with plastic from Apples to headphones to bacon to disposable nappies.... we're living in a shrink wrapped world and it's absolutely unnecessary.
When I first started supplying kits I used to actually "make" boxes out of old random pieces of cardboard and would stuff them with anything that came to hand... the e-mails I received commenting on the "wonderful packaging" were plentiful... the more popular the kits became the more I have tended to ship using bubbles and state of the art packaging.... funny though, nobody says "nice packaging" these days (even though it's 100% failsafe and would withstand a nuclear attack) I think they expect the convenience of bubbles and tape and perfect looking packages.... time to go back to basics and ship using my traditional "zany" use what you have to hand method of packaging.... I miss the compliments
The kits themselves are green (comply to ROHS) but I urge the customer to use a good leaded solder.... unleaded, IMO, sounds bloody awful.... I supply 2 metres of superb quality 60 / 40 leaded with the kits and I recommend you use it, it will provide a much "greener" joint in that it will last forever and won't suffer tin pest after a couple of years and find its way into a landfill.... Longevity / quality, IMO, is "green"....... something that lasts a lifetime..... I don't consider disposable / throwaway "landfill friendly"crap as "green".... quite the opposite in fact, if it never finds it's way into a landfill then it is truly green.
Right, I've rambled on enough I've got 8 people to send a new "green" PDF manual to and have got a bit of paper bank surfing to do
