[PLUG-TALK] Amazon shipping envelope sleeping bags

[Keith Lofstrom]

Besides spying on me and destroying local retailing, the
most immediate annoyance of Amazon is that they ship
individual items in those indestructable white and blue
bubble wrap bags.  Amazon puts 5-minutes-to-peel paper
labels on them, which must be removed before recycling,
then shlepped in bunches to the overflowing plastic bin
at Fred Meyer.  Fooey.

All is not lost - my wife's friend crochets them into
sleeping bags for the homeless.  Clever!

I can imagine a manually-operated machine that blacks out
the labels, welds the bags face to face, then joins them
into large sheets for sleeping bags and mats, perhaps even
small igloo-style tents.  If the less-bewildered homeless
recipients helped make their own bags and mats and tents,
that might be a baby step towards empowerment.

There may be some PSU students on this list with 
mechanical or chemical engineer friends. Designing this
could become a capstone project for seniors.  Perhaps
they could guilt-trip Jeff Bezos into funding equipment
design and training and a Portland workspace for this.
If not, we make them into picket signs.

I can donate a couple dozen bags per year, including a
stack in the garage awaiting label removal. 

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com