Something else I will keep in mind when planning to ship.  Never really gave it that much thought, but I will now!

I have been talking about this for over a year now. I am glad I am not the only one that notices these things. I work as an administrative assistant. Part of my job is to handle incoming and outgoing packages. I get furious over the wasteful packaging that goes on. The boxes I recieve are way to large for the products that I am recieving and whatever is put inside to protect the prodect is almost always not enviromentaly friendly. I have a sales rep. from Staples that calles me weekly to see if there is anything I need and I always tell him about this issue I have with the packaging. Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing attention to this. Does anyone have any ideas? What can I do to push these companies to be more "Green" with their packaging?

If only it was as easy as that. I have difficulties with my work enviornment as well. I manage a reserach lab and the other day we received caps for specimen vials. The caps were in plastic bags (500 per bag, I'm okay with that) but then the bags (two different ones, still okay with it as they were different colors) were in their own box inside a bigger box. Not okay will all the boxes. Company could have reduced the number of boxes by two (there were three to begin with), gotten by with a smaller box, and may have paid less to ship the darn thing.
Not sure if complaining to the Customer Service Rep will do any good but maybe trying to buy from companies that don't waste so much in packaging is the key.
I too try to recycle as much as possible. I have gone so far as to start taking my recyclables home since my work only recycles paper and cardboard. Just started throwing all of my cardboard boxes in the "Blue" bin at work as well as my unwanted paper. I do feel better about that but just wish there were more opportunities to recycle more items.

A few years back I used to have an online store and I would always be careful not to go overboard with the packaging, and of course I always made sure the items were secure.

 Something I started doing that actually turned out to be very effective and convenient was reusing everything. For example if I would do exchanges I would generally save the packaging in which my items would arrive for reuse. Same thing for gift wrapping in the holidays, I always try to save them for later. I know it sounds awfully cheap, but that's my contribution to the motto we all know so well, Reduce, Reuse, Recyle. 

Staples and Amazon.com seem to have been the worst offenders in my ordering existence.  Both companies feel utterly *compelled* to ship their stuff, which is never breakable in my orders, in boxes that are enormous compared to their contents.  To fill all that air space, they include those awful peanuts and/or those plastic air pillows as cushioning.  I hope that perhaps we can, as a group, convince them to downsize the exterior packaging.  They would certainly save themselves money on shipping because more boxes would fit in each truckload, etc...

As a displaced Canadian living in the US, I can also offer the following observations:

1.  American products are far more overpackaged than their Canadian counterparts.

2.  Where I live in the US, the recycling practices are more than a decade behind what I left behind in my little corner of Canada.  Moreover, people here are far less willing to do anything about using the recycling facilities available; I am *always* seeing littering, and people putting into the dumpster what belongs in the recycling containers.  It's important, I think, to note that our recycling containers are provided for us where we live; this is *not* an inconveience but most people don't use them anyhow.  All their stuff goes into huge "forceflex" bags and into the dumpster.  The amounts that seem to be generated are, for me, mind-boggling.  We had one garbage can to fill every *two* weeks - or had to pay extra - where we lived in Canada and we didn't have a problem with excess.

3.  Where I was living in Canada, there were large, public trash receptacles all over the place - and now they have beverage container recycle containers placed next to them so the bottles don't end up in landfill.  Here, the garbage cans themselves are scarce and very few places recycle bottles, even when you ask.

Seems to me that the biggest problem is the level of awareness.  On a positive note, some bottled water is now being distributed in containers made from corn, along with Amy Chung's Asian entrees.  These containers biodegrade naturally; in fact, the bowls that you use for the entrees can go into compost.

I really detest that very hard, brittle plastic that almost every hardware and electronic item is secured in. They almost impossible to open without a great deal of violence with sharp implements and the resulting edges are like razor blades. Not only is this very wasteful, it's also dangerous; I've cut myself many times on these Weapons of Marketing Destruction.

"All of you are perfect, and you could use a little improvement." Suzuki Roshi

I receive and send boxes in my line of work also and I noticed this trend of supersizing the packaging.  I finally asked someone who would know, why they do this.  I was told that in our wonderfully litigious society people will complain or sue if their packages come dented or flawed in any way.  So now shipping costs sometimes more than the item shipped.

My wife and I got a few wedding presents from friends who wanted to give green. We ended up getting all these cool reused and repurposed items from some green retailer whose name I can't remember. The ironic part: each item was wrapped in paper, put into a box that was wrapped with paper and then put into another box full of crumpled paper -- and I'm talking brand new brown shipping paper, not reused newspaper -- and that whole thing was wrapped in paper. And then shipped across the country.

So, so green! 

I think one of the reason why green packaging are not that popular to everyone is because they can be both expensive to make and to buy.