What do I do with all the delivery boxes?

[2011mummy29]

My house is becoming overrun with ridiculous amounts of amazon etc delivery boxes, bubble wrap and that brown paper they wrap things in. I honestly don’t know what to do with, my house is cluttered enough already, and it feels like an endless battle trying to even make enough space to live comfortably.
I called amazon and complained when they delivered yet another box which was nearly as long as my sofa, but they said I couldn’t return it unless I took it 3 miles to the depot to return. I don’t have a car at the moment so couldn’t easily do that.
Does anyone have similar issues or is this just me? Any tips or advice would be appreciated. It sounds stupid, but I have bpd and anxiety, and struggle with organisation as it is. Thanks

If you put out a cardboard box of extra paper and card, they always take it IME.

btw how do you make raised garden beds out of cardboard boxes?

Do you have a garden? You can compost some cardboard.

Ask the council for an extra recycling box?

During lockdown we felt as if we were building a second house with all the cardboard boxes we had. We collapsed them as much as we could & put them out with the recycling. Fortunately they were happy to take extra under the circumstances (they are usually very strict & won't take anything not in the recycling wheely bin). Our don't take bubble wrap, so for us that would have to go in the regular bin.

The bubble wrap you can put in a black bag & leave the bag open on recycling day, then they can see what's in it and hooefully take it away.

You could try the app olio it’s a giving a way for free app.

We take one of the larger boxes and use it to contain the other broken down boxes. Then we leave that box next to the recycling bin. Our carrier prefers boxes be separate to other recycling. The catch is that our carrier has been having hands-free periods during covid so then just have to add whatever boxes we can to the top of the recycling bin. Still, keeping them flat packed into a larger box keeps them tidy until we can get rid of them.

We re-use packaging when we can, put some in the recycling bin and if there's no room in that there's a card recycling skip in the local supermarket car park. Many's the time I've taken large, flattened boxes there.

@2011mummy29

I complained because I ordered a small item, and it came in a box which was roughly the size of me. It was the third one that week, and I called them to return the item and complain about package size. Then was was told they wouldn’t collect it and I’d have to take it somewhere which I physically couldn’t do. I guess it was an overreaction on my part, but my recycle bin is full and I have no loft or anywhere to put all this stuff.

Apparently the size of the boxes is optimised to fit the most as possible into the delivery truck which is why you sometimes get very big boxes - it's actually better for the environment/efficiency (and Amazon's profits obviously)

@2011mummy29

Thanks for the replies, I guess it’s obvious to just put them out for recycling. They don’t fit in the bin hopefully they’ll accept them if I put them out anyway, but will put a post up offering them for free too. Don’t know about all the bubble wrap, I’ll leave it out for recycling and hope for the best. Thanks for the help, I feel a bit silly now, just was getting too much.

Stick the bubble wrap on FB too - loads of people need it for packaging etc.

I break down all boxes and keep them inside one big box, then just fill the recycling bin which gets emptied every two weeks. Our council also takes any extra boxes that don’t fit into the bin, as long as they are broken down/flat and not wet, so I put any extra out behind the bin on recycling day.

Packaging like bubble wrap might be recyclable but it varies from council to council so you need to look it up. If it’s not recyclable it goes into your normal household rubbish. I have had loads of bubble wrap lately because we’ve just done a very big house move and we had to wrap all our furniture, but also we have ordered much more online during lockdown. I’ve bagged it all up and I put a couple of bags into the household bin every week. I’ll continue doing that until I’ve cleared the backlog.

And reuse is always better than recycling if possible. Whenever I've put something on our village FB for free, it's been gone in a few hours, so definitely try that before breaking things up for recycling.

Definitely sounds a good idea to offer bubble wrap for people to collect. Hadn’t thought of that.

We have a log burner thing in the garden and save them for that.

Cut them up and put them in the bin. Ask your neighbours if they have any space in their recycling bins. Take them to your council waste disposal centre.

It’s a completely understandable issue don’t feel silly for raising it - in lockdown less recycling was done by many councils. Tips were shut. amazon uses ridiculously oversized packaging to deliver which exacerbated the problem. Many of us shopped more online during lockdown therefore more packaging produced. Check what your local tip is now accepting, get a free van pass (most Council tips will allow a few a year for residential use but you have to prebook) then hire a zip van for a few hours. This is the cheapest most effective way we have found of getting rid of surplus. In future try to group your amazon order into one regular shop ( checkout once a week say) or use subscribe and safe - you’ll find they use less packaging this way.

If our recycling bin is full, we sometimes check next door's after they've put it out for collection and if there's space we put a few flattened boxes on top. (We get on well and they'd say yes if we asked, but as they've already put it - we put our bins out the night before collection - I can't see the harm in using some of their 'spare' space.)

@FlamedToACrisp re garden bed from cardboard- it's to act as a base and stop weeds getting through, and then use in a lasagne bed.

So you make edges out of sleepers, tyres, pallets, whatever. Line the sides and base with cardboard. Fill with layers of card, grass clippings, shred, sticks etc. Top soil/compost on top. The under layers soak up water and act as a reservoir before breaking down into compost. You plant on top and just top up each year with compost.

Stop ordering stuff from Amazon.

Just break down the big cardboard boxes, a bit like they do in supermarket recycling. I often see neat flat stacks of cardboard stacked near the bins, and the bin men always take it away with the rest of the bin stuff.

Some people ask for boxes if they are moving house, or for children to make things out of. I had three cardboard boxes that I had left outside the back door after a delivery,was going to keep in my shed after, but when I went out to get them my three cats were asleep in each of them.

@Marpan

My husband bought a Camper van and puts our rubbish in that.

Is this a genuine post?