America Is Drowning in Packages

I feel there's an interesting business opportunity for sturdy, reusable, general-purpose transport boxes (out of e.g. high-quality plastic). You could add a deposit-refund system on top so they are treated well.

This way one could also reuse filling material. Presumably you could also integrate an RFID chip for identification or maybe to reduce the need for paper labels.

Well, yeah. Wal-Mart was the first wave, to destroy local, small, and boutique stores: in favor of crap chinesium that is sold 'slightly cheaper'.

Amazon moved in, used the agreements with USPS and China to cheaply (read nearly 100% subsidized) agreements to bring dangerous shit. But hey, with Scamazon Prime, it's 'free shipping' (somehow free and $140/yr are the same thing).

A package hub would be better. When I can order things to the store, is a lot easier and also has better security than "on front door". But people demand convenience.

And naturally there's the climate devastation these millions of miles driven to deliver shit. And that's also exacerbating the workers with trucks that had intentionally ripped the AC system out.

But the ones making decisions aren't for doing the good and smart thing. They're just for doing the profitable thing.

I work at USPS and rural carriers are paid on evaluated time. While some locations don’t get many packages because Amazon has taken the load off with their own contractors, many offices have to make multiple trips because of the package load which essentially means USPS workers in those rural offices are working for free on those second trips. The package load is a real problem.

> You might only really notice the handful of packages that come to your home each week (three to four in an average household).

3-4 a week is average? holy shit man that's an incredibly high number.