Last weekend our printer died so we bought a new one. Today I opened up the box to install it and I discovered HPs latest packaging scheme: packing the printer in a tote bag. Yes your eyes have not deceived you. I said a tote bag. The accessories (ink cartridges, power cord) was also in a zippered canvas bag. The label on the bag is "HP Ecosolutions", so this seems like an attempt by HP to be more environmentally friendly (read: engage in marketing hype)
The new paradigm from HP is: cardboard box, styrofoam padding, canvas tote bag, then tape, plastic and cardboard attached directly to the printer (a great deal of it I might add) to protect its shiny and/or moving bits.
I had always thought the plastic bag was to function as a barrier so moisture could not get to the product. Substituting the plastic for the canvas tote bag blows this theory out of the water as the tote bag isn't exactly waterproof (nor was it sealed in any way).
It occurs to me that the more environmentally friendly thing to do is to skip the bag altogether and simply place the printer directly inside the styrofoam (or pull a page from Apples playbook and replace the foam with cardboard forms). So now instead of a plastic bag I could simply toss in the recycle bin, or having no bag at all that requires no cleanup of any kind. I now have a canvas bag that will pollute my environment and hang around my house making me angry every time I see it.
So thanks HP for sucking on the environmentalist spigot of idiocy and coming up with a completely useless solution to an already solved problem.
This is why enviro-hippies should not be put in charge of anything.
