Collapsing Riverford boxes. Little success; much swearing ...

[MayIDestroyYou]

Fucking hell. It's taken me a year to wrestle two of the bloody things into vaguely triangular submission. But I don't understand how to do it - and my third attempt has been an embarrassing failure.

I have perhaps half a garage-full of the blessed things.

Those photographs on the website are just there to mock me, aren't they?

Please help ...

I have these - you just put your thumbs where the holes at the side of the box are and push. The bottom of the box will pop downwards and the box goes flat.

You make it sound so simple.

I can only conclude that all ninety million of my boxes are faulty ...

Advertise them as free boxes for moving house etc on facebook marketplace, Collection only.

I have these too. Sometimes you have to coax the long edges on top to pop up at the same time as the bottom pops down. There are spots on the side to press, just near the circular hole.

You can ask someone else to press in while you punch the bottom down as well, if that helps with the frustration

Okay ... so if the box is standing, right way up, on the floor - it might not work? Should I be lifting it up while I perform the manoeuvre?

Aren't you supposed to give them back each week? So no need to collapse, can pop out on the doorstep and let them do it

Don’t you leave them on your doorstep to be taken the next week? They re use them if you do ...

I have been giving them back, intermittently. But it has frustrated me to see a smiling, competent woman, in a Riverford photo, handing over her neatly minimised cardboard to a grateful delivery person. She's making me look bad ...

It's a bit sad actually - I only started ordering from them last Spring, so there have been no cosy doorstep chats. My delivery man is practising drop and run and we've only ever spoken via intercom.

I have been using Riverford for 7 or 8 years and still struggle a bit. I sort of hug them to myself with one arm and put the other inside and push down on the bottom seam. I always give mine back each week but they take up too much space to store unfolded in between deliveries, also more likely to blow away. I've never met my delivery person, I'm always at work.

Yes you can't do it while it's sitting on the floor - you have to do as Eventually describes and hold it up in the air in front of you as you press the sides in. When you push the bottom of it down (hence why you can't do it on the floor) that should pull the sides in for you as well. When you get an older box that has been folded quite a few times it's much easier, but they've had an explosion of new customers through lockdown and I notice that many of the boxes are new and stiff, and harder to fold as a result.

Don’t fast forward to 0.52 and look at him surrounded by folded boxes.

Oooh! Thanks. Though I was hoping it would be Guy ... There'd be no fast forwarding if he was on my screen. 😜

Anyway, thanks to the careful advice received here I have a weekend project to look forward to.

Wait a minute..... why don't they take the boxes away for reuse?

I have an organic veg box delivered each week. They leave the new box in the greenhouse, and take the old box (which I leave out for them) to be reused.

The whole point of veg boxes is about being eco friendly, less packaging etc. isn't it?

Erm you’re meant to give them back - ?

They do take them back.

Peeps can't read ...

I’ve never had a problem folding them. I’m fact they’re get folded and slotted away until the following week, and then then get forgotten about until the pile has gone too big to ignore.