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I'm definitely not an environmental activist type, but it really ticks me off when I shop for shoes and find all the extra packaging and trash in every box!
I'm sure many of you shop at DSW. If you don't, it's this great shoe store that has tons of designer shoes at decent prices. But this happens at every shoe store, include department stores.
This is how my typical shoe-shopping trip goes:
See a pair of shoes I like. Look through the boxes to find my size. Go to a bench to sit down. Open box. Pull aside tissue paper. Sometime shoes are individually wrapped. Remove individual wrapping. Pull out first shoe, which has a weird plastic thing in it to keep it in shape. Remove plastic thing. Remove big wad of tissue paper in the shoe. Try to put shoe on foot, but encounter another wad in the toe of the shoe. Take out foot, remove toe-wad. Try to put shoe on again, hit the little square bag of "dessicant." Throw that on the floor. Repeat whole process for other shoe.
By now, floor is covered with wads of paper, weird plastic things, dessicant packs, plastic bags, and more tissue paper. Whether or not I buy the shoes, I sure as heck ain't putting that mess back together. Besides the store has one trash can like 100 yards away. After a few customers trying on a few pairs of shoes each, the place is covered in trash.
I've complained to the people who work there (it's at every shoes store, not just DSW). They say they hate it too, but it's the manufacturer who is responsible. It's so wasteful! Even if all the tissue paper is biodegradable, I'm sure the plastic stuff isn't. And why so much of it? It seems that they had to hire a swarm of people just to do all this packaging, which I'm sure jacks up the price of the shoes too.
What can you do? I'm sure the factories in the Taiwan-indo-pines don't give a damn about our issues with over packaging. I've considered putting all the garbage into a box and mailing it to them.
I mean, we can't just stop buying shoes, right? And I'm definitely not the thrift store/used Birkenstock type so please don't go there.
I guess I'm partly looking for suggestions, but mostly just wanted to rant and see whether this bothers other people too.
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