And wrapped like a protective layer around advertising. Gosh I usually love Answer In Progress, but . . . oof this didn't do it for me. Just doing a little research on those OPPO projects, I'm really underwhelmed, they seem like expensive distractions from solving the problems. Wool? Really? Wool is already expensive. There's no way there's that much wool out there being burned and buried, at least not the kind that can be processed into beautiful clean product. I looked at some numbers. * 1.033 billion kg of clean wool were produced in 2021 worldwide * 106 million kg of plastic were used to make bubble packaging in 2019. That's 1% of the weight of all wool made in a year. And you know it'll take more weight in wool to provide padding. There isn't wasted production in wool. Sheep live on land. Wool is sheered by hands. Aaaah this doesn't make sense! And if somebody really, truly invented a properly well-behaved biodegradable PLA, they wouldn't need OPPO for funding. DOW Chemical would send lawyers, guns, and money straight to their door.
@@OrigamiMarieyeah same. This seems like a nothingburger of a video to me, which is weird for AiP. Then all of the Oppo inserts happened and it made sense. Get your bag, of course. But... This one ain't it.
Probably because they're not an Oppo Inspiration Challenge finalist. This video doesn't want to talk about working sustainable packaging solutions, it's an ad.
Sabrina, no matter how powerful the motor, it will not change the PAPER plane's ability to carry a load as heavy an egg. It was not structurally design to carry such a load. Also a more powerful motor would likely mean more mass which means an even larger load weighing down the plane. Aside from that, looks like you all had fun and glad to see Terry survive the fall.
I'm surprised that the version with pasta, which seemingly took the least effort to make and didn't require buying anything, did so extremely well - both contained the egg and kept it safe.
Yeah, it's all because of expense. If you've ever packed something fragile while moving, you've probably intuitively padded around it with clothes, towels or similar. Plastic is just the cheapest option right now, but literally anything to provide cushioning and prevent movement (to make sure it stays in the position where it has cushioning) works. A simple solution to the current issue with plastic packaging would just be to normalise _not_ throwing away single-use packaging, though. Demand would plummet if people just reused or sent back their packaging.
@@debesys6306 Exactly. Our current perception of how packaging should be treated is a modern invention born from American infinite-growth consumer capitalism. Only been like this in Europe since the 80s. Human existence isn't inherently so wasteful, unchecked modern capitalism made it so.
I expected the quail egg to be some kind of metaphor, like maybe if we build less fragile products they wouldn't need as much packaging, but no it was just cheating.
It's also impressive that her idea of sustainable packaging is adding a motor and some batteries to the same wasteful plastic that she was complaining about.
@@Pimp.My.Forkliftto argue that its at least not a "one time use" plastic as the idea would probably be that it's returnable. Like if it was an Amazon drone delivery it would just hand you the object as opposed to the object inside of packaging. It's changing the "one time use" thing to a long term energy issue. I mean it still didn't work, and like energy being sustainable is already like, a whole thing, but you can logic it out
I love how videos like this accidentally work out perfectly at demonstrating the information. Like, Sabrina is the one who's doing the heavy research, figuring out all of the factors that professionals take into account, and then Melissa and Taha intuitively come up with working solutions to problems that they want to solve that are perfectly aligned with what Sabrina's talking about. It makes the information seem a lot more practical. I also love how Sabrina, despite being the one who's done all the research, is the one with the most impractical solution. In that she had a design that doesn't work and that she used an egg that I would definitely never eat with Spam for breakfast.
Honestly, the most waste in packaging I've experienced is from poor practices. I recently recieved 12 cones of yarn in a box that could fit my whole coffee table. That is way too much box. The reason amazon does that is because it's too expensive to have every size box on hand and pay someone to fit the product in nicely into the appropriate box. So the solution is, Jeff make smaller margins and pay more workers to do a better job. He already hobbled the local market, so buying local is a rapidly dieing option. He needs to fix the problem that he created.
Not to defend Amazon. But I think the actual reason is the computers calculate the size of boxes needed to reduce shaking, thus damage, in the truck. Like Tetris. Using the boxes themselves as packaging protection.
I've ordered some things from Amazon that have arrived just in the manufacturer's box (sometimes with an extra corrugated box to hide the contents and protect the inner box from minor damage), or smaller items in a padded shipping envelope, but also often received a couple items that needed no protection at all in an oversized box with a lot of void fill. The logistics of shipping so many different items of unknown fragility probably makes them err on the side of over-protecting items in many cases. Better classifying items by the protection needed could help reduce excess packaging in some cases, but the effort and complexity required might not save enough in materials or other expenses for them to justify implementing it 😔
Yep, I've gotten oddly misproportioned items vs box, sometimes with no padding material inside. I guess Amazon just thinks "well returns are free, who cares if it arrives mangled."
As a packer for Amazon, I completely agree. The fact we have a very short time limit for packing (30 SECONDS per BOX!) is a big part of why box size is limited, too. Even with the limits, boxes take up both a shelf above the work desk and below, spanning the entire table which is 4-5 feet long. We also aren't allowed to change box sizes unless we size up, meaning the person who packed your yarn didn't have a choice in if they sent you a coffee table box or not.
We did the egg drop experiment in school (didn't we all?). We dropped from 3 stories up. The simplest way to keep the egg from breaking was to suspend it inside a small box using e.g. a sock. The stretchy sock will allow it to wobble around inside without touching the walls with enough force to break.
We did a paper-only egg drop, limited to 3 sheets of letter-sized paper and a foot of Scotch tape. The solution was pretty simple and could conceivably be dropped from any height: 1. Make two propeller wings, one from each sheet 2. Make a narrow cone from the third sheet and squash the tip to form a soft crumple zone. 3. Tape the prop wings on opposite sides of the open end of the cone and twist them slightly to give them a bit of a curve 4. Load the egg into the cone, pushing it almost all of the way down to the nose of the cone A massive amount of the potential energy goes into spinning the whole thing and the massive surface area decreases the terminal velocity substantially, resulting in a very slow descent speed, with the crumple zone handling the impact.
I used to work at a company called imperfect foods that was a cardboard box filled with groceries and had ice packs and bubble wrap/ foil, and customers could leave their packaging outside on their delivery day, so I’d deliver their new box, and then grab the old packaging. We’d recycle the bubble into paper towel holders or whatever they do with it, and they’d sanitize the ice packs and reuse them. Boxes we just put into recycling
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 I suspect the "imperfect" part of the name likely comes from starting as a project to get fruit/vegetable that is edible but doesn't look perfectly like the standard model apple people want in the supermarket. And I'm sure there are batches of products that don't meet quality control while being totally safe to eat as well for other products. I had quite a few opportunities to buy mostly vegetables and sometimes fruit well below normal cost per kg at a nearby store that only sells fruits and vegetables. One of those batches was contracted to go to a supermarket chain, but because the apples were a bit too light they couldn't be sold normally. It's kinda baffling how common it is for food not to make it to human consumption merely because of a slight deviation in shape/colour/weight. I've never been bothered by that, but I guess my parents having a small garden in the first house we grew up and 4 productive fruit trees in the second house while growing up was a good way to learn that not everything will look perfect to be edible.
I was at Imperfect Foods for a bit and the amount of orders with just a handful of items (like two lemons) was just ridiculous. We only had ONE box size.
I was hoping that if bubblewrap disappeared in my lifetime, it would be because we found something much more sustainable. Although I'll miss bubblewrap, I'm excited for the changing times!
A friends new internet equipment came with the packing paper that was covered in colouring book images AND contained a small package of golf sized pencil crayons. It delighted her.
i order MTG trading cards sometimes and people usually package the cards between lesser played and low demand ones. Which is super fun because every once in a while one of these "trash" cards is actually good enough to play in a specific niche, and i'll end up with a card in my deck that i didn't know existed at all
i get unreasonably excited for the shredded cardboard/paper packaging because the worms in my worm farm go WILD for those. i never have happier worms then when i get the fancy shampoo that ships with that stuff.
The real issue is the ludicrously large cardboard boxes in relation to the item inside it - leading to excessive packing inside material. The right box for each box would really help. Cardboard boxes are biodegradable, after all. And scrunched up paper as packing inside would also be biodegradable.
Yup, they're super handy, and use the main wood part of the tree. Also their production creates the sawdust. Though there are some major problems with shipping sawdust . . .
If Taha wasn't trying to use items he already had (I assume he collected those sticks from outside), then buying some wood shavings or straw from a pet store would have also been much easier as well.
I wonder what the optimal pasta shape for protection is. Packing pasta would probably not be recommended for consumption though, since the factory making it might not be set up for all the necessary food safety standards, or it could be bundled into void-fill bubbles that aren't made for keeping it safe and fresh for consumption.
Novel battery technologies are great, but as far as I'm aware no known chemistry can beat anything lithium can do in a closed system (ie not fuel cells). The main use of novel batteries is in low to medium demand applications where cost and/or resource consumption is the main issue (eg EVs are surprisingly tolerant of less than optimal batteries, so some Chinese manufacturers are about to start selling Sodium ion based vehicles, which have shorter ranges but are still good enough for commuting and are much cheaper). This and other somewhat weight tolerant applications like ultra low power devices that don't need much battery and such are the best target for batteries made of scavenged materials, saving the lithium for higher performance applications.
I think one of the main reasons organic matter (hay, sawdust) isn't used anymore is that there's a higher chance of insects/rodents or whatever critters and mold that can join the journey. This could lessen the chance of bringing in species that are not endemic to the region. But also, with the volume of items being shipped... i don't think there'd be enough hay etc. We buy bulk, and for bigger breakable items, it's usually delivered by sea in wooden crates stuffed with old newspapers. Not plastic at least.
Thank you for making this video. Even though our world is so behind, you definitely create a grounding in the PRESENT and past, and POSSIBLE futures. I love the way this video has me thinking. Where does the money come from? Where does the manufacturing happen, where does the manufacturing finish? How does it get there? Where does the product go after it’s use? Thank you for this I have sooooo much faith in the future. I believe that we could have a great future in transportation and materials, as well as disposal. Thank you for this!!!!
the tea company I buy from uses the extra tea bag stuff from between where the round tea bags are cut out as their packing material, and bonus it makes the box smell really good
The sawdust idea is solid. It's or was still used for eggs where I am from when you don't have egg crates. Sawmills or carpenters readily make them and its waste for them and a bag of sawdust costs under $1. Also, you can use the sawdust as cat litter
Did no one send/receive care packages in college with pop-corn as packing? It works great on so many levels, including the ability to interlock like foam "peanuts" do. And it's a lot tastier than the biodegradable peanuts, too (though my composting worms seem to love the stuff).
If they introduced the egg drop experiment like this in high school I probably would've been a better student but man is the history behind packaging so cool. Love that AIP team is getting sponsored by OPPO's inspiration challenge too, feels more aligned to be featuring creative solutions and informational deep dives that give a better understanding of the world at work. Great video!
My sister and I entered our elementary school's egg drop contest for several years in a row. My parents weren't the type to do our homework for us, but on this one Dad made a series of egg copters and we took credit. Gold spray painted eggs (made of wood) make great and apparently long-lasting trophies
we need more micelium based packaging. there were a few companies i were following online pre-covid that were making packaging foam and boxes, hell, even caskets, made out of fungus mycelium that was baked to be inert so it doesnt effect the package. fully decomposes, can be grown and shaped into any packaging needs in bulk, uses food waste to be grown. all around amazing. i pivoted away from my brain drain social media after a while and lost track, but the foundation for those packaging options exist! theres even mushroom bacon that people can eat and i think its from the same type of fungus, i think it was a new york company
Taha's egg falling out reminds me of my high school egg dropper because it also fell out and somehow survived, but the best part was that we had a paper plate on top of our dropper to add a bit of air resistance acting as a pseudo parachute, and the egg managed to land perfectly onto the plate when the dropper hit the ground.
My senior project in college to get my Materials Engineering degree was manufacturing and testing thin films of PLA-Nanocellulose plastic blends. I was trying to improve the strength of the films (PLA film is not very strong) while not sacrificing the biodegradability. Now I wish I had kept some of my samples to test how biodegradable my PLA blend was!
This is a cool video! This only touches the surface of modern packaging and modern sustainable packaging. There are lots of standards for the integrity of packaging and for testing. And in terms of materials, there's cut and folded paper, molded fiber, and mycelium that are all used in product specific packaging design.
Sabrina's confidence in launching the plane with a raw egg gives me life. Could have practiced with a boiled egg until flying smoothly, and then switched the eggs, but noooooo. Not for Sabrina! HARD MODE BABY!!!
This would be such a fun challenge for science classes! Use stuff already found in the recycling bin or destined for the trash can/compost to insulate your egg against a fall! PHYSICS BABY!
I am so glad you mentioned that PLA doesn't really biodegrade, because it's a common misconception. I learned about it from Maker's Muse, a 3d printing channel on youtube.
2:13 we did lol Whenever I go back to my hometown, my family would put eggs with rice husk so I can carry them back to the city. It was very useful the eggs stay break free
Oppo where so petty they made them blur the the distinctive camera of their iphones. Allowing an advertiser to dictate video content outside of the ad(even if its seems meaningless) feels like a slippery slope.
I think the fact that school had us protect eggs using sticks and newspaper proves that sustainable packaging is definitely possible, at least in the small scale.
When I did this in school I had a similar approach to Sabrina’s airplane. I attached a container of jello to the top of a wide frisbee and stuck the egg in it. My teacher kinda treated me like I was cheating but hey, it didn’t break.
I use cereal in bags, or tea, or bags of potato chips, cause all come in a plastic bag filled with air already, and most teas come in single packets, so I can fill up a box with teabags - so it fills up and stops stuff from moving, and add a pack of chips of cereal and you can eat the cereal, tea and chips after and recycle the plastic that’s left
I work in a small coop business and we usually recycle all the box and box stuffing we receive from distribution to send to our customers. We also give the boxes away to people (it's excellent for people moving house). We still have to buy cushioned enveloppe though since the package we send are a lot smaller than the one we receive and would love to just wrap the product in box stuffing and in a paper bag but unfortunately, the customer doesn't like the diy presentation it gives out even if it's safe and sound for transport (so we're stock with buying cushioned enveloppe). I would also love to be able to buy the more friendly-envrionnement packaging but we don't set our prices (it's set by the distribution) so we can't afford those higher quality enveloppe without starting to lose money every-time we ship an item. The real environmentally friendly solutions we found in the end to radically reduce waste were: 1-Reuse as much packaging, enveloppe and stuffing as possible (they can also serve as a "bag" for people who need to transport their purchases home even if it's not that convenient) 2-That means you should be careful when opening packages to be able to reuse it. 3-Do not encourage online shopping for people who can travel to the shop (by walk, bicycle, subway, etc. by car, the footprint would be greater than postal service). Anyway, you have more profit if people buy in store anyway because you lose a lot on margins when shipping (because you have to be concurrent to giants who will offer better price on shipping and you have to at least 1/2 match it). 4-We deliver by hand packages to very close houses (don't forget to count those hour in your salary, but it's always cheaper to pay your employee to walk 10-15 minutes there than to pay the 8$ [minumum!] fee for postal service). 5-Use bicycle delivery when possible (in France, they really develop those delivery service by bike to a whole other level, I saw amazing things just by looking out a windows of an hotel where someone was taking all the hotel sheets to get wash in a big bike-trailer and getting delivered normal package by another trailored-bike postal service). 6-Buy in bulk the rest of packages you need when it won't be enough (because in small amount, you will use way more plastic packaging for the 5 cushioned enveloppe than the cardboard box with no plastic of the 100 enveloppes).
I like how you were discussing the actual topic and seamlessly transition to talking about ads. That was epic writing. However, forgive me if I found it funny to see your blurred phones at the beginning of the video only to see them clearly at the end 😅
Thick wool sock ftw. That's how I used to pack my mugs when moving. Roll up one sock and put i side mug, wrap other sock(s) around outside of mug, tuck into box where it won't move around.
This was basically watching 3 non science background people attempt an egg drop. We can hate cardboard as much as we want but right now it's our most practical packaging solution. It might not seem like much but cardboard is an incredible material.
When I was a kid the local recreation center had an annual egg drop where kids wrapped up an egg in a container and it was dropped from the roof of the building, about 2 stories. The ones that survived won a Hershey bar.
I'm surprised that they don't use sawdust as a packing material anymore - maybe because of allergy/respiratory issues. Also, never knew about biodegradable plastics before. I hope it starts to see more widespread use. I remember hearing that in the 18th and 19th centuries they would sometimes use lentils for packaging.
I feel like the allergy and respiratory issues could be at least mitigated by containing the sawdust in some kind of wrapping, maybe using the biodegradable plastic. Need less plastic, use up otherwise garbage sawdust
i for one dont want to open a package to find it full of saw dust that will spill out everywhere and make a huge mess. imagine having to sweep/vacume anytime you open an Amazon package. it sounds worse than packing peanuts... and if you are using biodegradable wrapping to contain it... why not just fill it with air instead? its less shipping weight.
I'm not surprised at all. Two big reasons that are fundamental and not fixable. 1. Sawdust is just too tasty to microbes and fungi of all kinds. The shredding of the wood exposes lots of surface area to live on and eat. Everything loves finely-ground cellulose. You would have to soak it in its weight in anti-life chemicals to fix this problem. And that gets to be bad for the humans, animals, and environment. Sure, you can say "just keep it dry, and it won't be a problem", but have you ever received a dry package on a wet day? Shipping is just like that. Nobody's paid enough to care. 2. Sure there's microbes in it, there's microbes everywhere, you just replace it after a bit . . . NOPE! Microbes make heat, and heat makes fire! Piles of wood of every chip size have to be monitored for heat and smoldering, because they'll do it spontaneously, from inside the pile, on a damp day.
Id guess its because of how flamable it is. Imagine one spark getting into a container filled with packages of sawdust. It can alco explode... Another issue is moisture. Noone wants to recieve a box full of mold.
That is because sawdust is too valuable now to be used for packing material. Sawdust is a key component used in a countless products. For example, all that cheap IKEA, Amazon, Walmart furniture. Thats not made from solid wood. They are all manufactured wood products, like particleboard, made from sawdust and binders to make a wood like product.
what i love about this video is that this is a real problem i think of every time i order something. another approach I've seen was from a wallet company. they make all of the packaging reusable in some capacity. the box turns into a piggy bank and even their message card can be planted and grows into a tree. there is improvement to be made, and companies like amazon just don't care enough to bother
This is wild bc right before this popped in my feed I had the rare bubble wrap in one of my packages (and oddly for a bike helmet from Amazon). It was non-traditional bubble wrap, but still.
I think, one key part is not mentioned here. Weight. For sure, the solution like wool or saw dust will protect the package. But the key advantage of the air bubblewrap is, that air has close to 0 weight. And if we want to talk about sustainability, material is important, but transporting more weight also means more CO2.
National thing? The lastest things I’ve ordered (thermos from Sweden and poppers from France) that was delivered this week both had bubble wrap. No change in how common bubble wrap is here in Northern mainland Europe.
Taiwan got a new solution recently.A e-commerce company called PChome, instead of using bubble wrap, puts some 150-sheet, bad-quality, cheap tissue with its brand name on it. Which is not a bad idea. The cost of the pack of tissue is almost the same as all that bubble wrap kind of stuff, also useful to the customer so it won't be all waste.
Shipping with Luffa (vegetable sponge) as filler would be better. It is organic, easy and cheap to grow, degrades fast in nature, it is light, and can be used for personal hygiene and house cleaning before discarting.
@@MarcusBuer Shipping with Luffa is a really good idea! But there is a little historical context: Taiwan is a small island, and almost every resource depends on international trade. So local agriculture hardly has the margin to make Luffa efficiently. So by local resource, a pack of tissue might be a more affordable choice.
I wish external factors like weather was also put into consideration. Like what would happen to a paper based package if it was delivered during a storm?
I feel that this video could have talked about Fungi packaging companies that, although still expensive, are really promising in developing fast degrading packages because, after all, they are merely Fungi.
I like how you blur your camera so people dont talk about what iPhone you have (or some samsung phones, but its size and case look alot like apple so I'm guess iPhone lol)
I have a question for you to ponder. If Plastics don't degrade very fast and can be manipulated like wood, then why don't we use them in housing construction in place of wood?
I love that real quick shot of Rachel Maksy's bubble wrap dress! I wonder if a SPAM container would have worked too or if it would have been too small for your average egg...
So who do you think won the egg drop challenge? 👀
me ❤
-william osman-
Taha's idea is like receiving a drop crate. You get whatever is inside AND you get a storage unit.
Using pasta as a filler may solve the issue of throwing it out as you can eat it.
melissa
Love how this video is an egg drop experiment but with history
My thoughts exactly. Seems like they wanted to go back and live their 6th grade egg drop dreams
answer in progress collab with william osman when
literally egg drop challenge (2023 version) + packaging history 101
And wrapped like a protective layer around advertising. Gosh I usually love Answer In Progress, but . . . oof this didn't do it for me. Just doing a little research on those OPPO projects, I'm really underwhelmed, they seem like expensive distractions from solving the problems.
Wool? Really? Wool is already expensive. There's no way there's that much wool out there being burned and buried, at least not the kind that can be processed into beautiful clean product. I looked at some numbers.
* 1.033 billion kg of clean wool were produced in 2021 worldwide
* 106 million kg of plastic were used to make bubble packaging in 2019.
That's 1% of the weight of all wool made in a year. And you know it'll take more weight in wool to provide padding. There isn't wasted production in wool. Sheep live on land. Wool is sheered by hands. Aaaah this doesn't make sense!
And if somebody really, truly invented a properly well-behaved biodegradable PLA, they wouldn't need OPPO for funding. DOW Chemical would send lawyers, guns, and money straight to their door.
@@OrigamiMarieyeah same. This seems like a nothingburger of a video to me, which is weird for AiP. Then all of the Oppo inserts happened and it made sense.
Get your bag, of course. But... This one ain't it.
I was surprised the video didn't mention starch based packing peanuts. They are literally vegetable starch and easily break down.
And they taste great!
@@ack131 like rice cakes
Those have already been a success so they don't need to be in the Oppo Challenge. /s
What about PEANUT (shells) based packing peanuts?!
Probably because they're not an Oppo Inspiration Challenge finalist. This video doesn't want to talk about working sustainable packaging solutions, it's an ad.
Sabrina, no matter how powerful the motor, it will not change the PAPER plane's ability to carry a load as heavy an egg. It was not structurally design to carry such a load. Also a more powerful motor would likely mean more mass which means an even larger load weighing down the plane. Aside from that, looks like you all had fun and glad to see Terry survive the fall.
Would have been better to crumple the paper around the egg and use the mask as a parachute.
@@xyzzy12345 The amount of drag that the mask would produce wouldn’t amount to much. You’d be better off crumpling it along with the paper.
Love that Taha managed to lazily find out one way they packaged products with one google search and Sabrina actually predicted Taha would do it
He didn't even find it out, he guessed and tried to justify guessing XD
The stars aligned for that one.
I'm surprised that the version with pasta, which seemingly took the least effort to make and didn't require buying anything, did so extremely well - both contained the egg and kept it safe.
Yeah, it's all because of expense. If you've ever packed something fragile while moving, you've probably intuitively padded around it with clothes, towels or similar. Plastic is just the cheapest option right now, but literally anything to provide cushioning and prevent movement (to make sure it stays in the position where it has cushioning) works.
A simple solution to the current issue with plastic packaging would just be to normalise _not_ throwing away single-use packaging, though. Demand would plummet if people just reused or sent back their packaging.
Melissa's philosophy of using easily accessible materials turned out to work for real.
@@debesys6306 Exactly. Our current perception of how packaging should be treated is a modern invention born from American infinite-growth consumer capitalism. Only been like this in Europe since the 80s. Human existence isn't inherently so wasteful, unchecked modern capitalism made it so.
@@ccaaggwhat about leaves? Would that work?
I think that works as well. It would not be for particularly fragile stuff, but stuff moderately prone to breaking could be cushioned by leaves.
I expected the quail egg to be some kind of metaphor, like maybe if we build less fragile products they wouldn't need as much packaging, but no it was just cheating.
And it didn't even work lmao
Wait a second… i was not expecting to see you here, ive only ever seen you under hermitcraft videos (mainly zedaph streams), I am so amazed rn
Boiling the egg beforehand would've made a metaphor like that
@@Pigborg Yep. Hello.
@@ikbintom That's a good idea. Cheaty, but good.
"Video starts at 7:38" is so incredibly meta, and it's a joke I am so here for.
I love your trio having science related fun. It's beautiful.
The fact that she thought a paper airplane could fly while holding the weight of an egg is BAFFLING
It's also impressive that her idea of sustainable packaging is adding a motor and some batteries to the same wasteful plastic that she was complaining about.
I’m fairly certain it was for the meme
@@Pimp.My.Forkliftto argue that its at least not a "one time use" plastic as the idea would probably be that it's returnable. Like if it was an Amazon drone delivery it would just hand you the object as opposed to the object inside of packaging. It's changing the "one time use" thing to a long term energy issue.
I mean it still didn't work, and like energy being sustainable is already like, a whole thing, but you can logic it out
There is no issue with a paper airplane flying with the weight of an egg. The problem was THAT paper airplane trying to fly with an egg.
It was literally just to make a point about batteries not being efficient enough for flight lol
I love how videos like this accidentally work out perfectly at demonstrating the information. Like, Sabrina is the one who's doing the heavy research, figuring out all of the factors that professionals take into account, and then Melissa and Taha intuitively come up with working solutions to problems that they want to solve that are perfectly aligned with what Sabrina's talking about. It makes the information seem a lot more practical.
I also love how Sabrina, despite being the one who's done all the research, is the one with the most impractical solution. In that she had a design that doesn't work and that she used an egg that I would definitely never eat with Spam for breakfast.
Honestly, the most waste in packaging I've experienced is from poor practices. I recently recieved 12 cones of yarn in a box that could fit my whole coffee table. That is way too much box. The reason amazon does that is because it's too expensive to have every size box on hand and pay someone to fit the product in nicely into the appropriate box. So the solution is, Jeff make smaller margins and pay more workers to do a better job. He already hobbled the local market, so buying local is a rapidly dieing option. He needs to fix the problem that he created.
Not to defend Amazon. But I think the actual reason is the computers calculate the size of boxes needed to reduce shaking, thus damage, in the truck. Like Tetris. Using the boxes themselves as packaging protection.
I've ordered some things from Amazon that have arrived just in the manufacturer's box (sometimes with an extra corrugated box to hide the contents and protect the inner box from minor damage), or smaller items in a padded shipping envelope, but also often received a couple items that needed no protection at all in an oversized box with a lot of void fill.
The logistics of shipping so many different items of unknown fragility probably makes them err on the side of over-protecting items in many cases. Better classifying items by the protection needed could help reduce excess packaging in some cases, but the effort and complexity required might not save enough in materials or other expenses for them to justify implementing it 😔
Yep, I've gotten oddly misproportioned items vs box, sometimes with no padding material inside. I guess Amazon just thinks "well returns are free, who cares if it arrives mangled."
Maybe they were going to ship it as roving, but then they realized you wanted the yarn spun...
As a packer for Amazon, I completely agree. The fact we have a very short time limit for packing (30 SECONDS per BOX!) is a big part of why box size is limited, too. Even with the limits, boxes take up both a shelf above the work desk and below, spanning the entire table which is 4-5 feet long. We also aren't allowed to change box sizes unless we size up, meaning the person who packed your yarn didn't have a choice in if they sent you a coffee table box or not.
It feels weird that Answer in Progress has been posting videos every week cuz I've used with them posting every month 😭
Lol im happy there is more good content to watch
same, i just keep pausing every moment i see the latest AiP video because I was like, "has it been one month since they posted?"
I think we are getting them in their stride now
The answers are progressing much more quickly.
We did the egg drop experiment in school (didn't we all?). We dropped from 3 stories up. The simplest way to keep the egg from breaking was to suspend it inside a small box using e.g. a sock. The stretchy sock will allow it to wobble around inside without touching the walls with enough force to break.
We did a paper-only egg drop, limited to 3 sheets of letter-sized paper and a foot of Scotch tape. The solution was pretty simple and could conceivably be dropped from any height:
1. Make two propeller wings, one from each sheet
2. Make a narrow cone from the third sheet and squash the tip to form a soft crumple zone.
3. Tape the prop wings on opposite sides of the open end of the cone and twist them slightly to give them a bit of a curve
4. Load the egg into the cone, pushing it almost all of the way down to the nose of the cone
A massive amount of the potential energy goes into spinning the whole thing and the massive surface area decreases the terminal velocity substantially, resulting in a very slow descent speed, with the crumple zone handling the impact.
I find the easiest egg drop build is just some string and plastic to make a parachute
@@bubbledoubletroublealso, you're letting aerodynamics work for you so it's pointing crumple zone down
I used to work at a company called imperfect foods that was a cardboard box filled with groceries and had ice packs and bubble wrap/ foil, and customers could leave their packaging outside on their delivery day, so I’d deliver their new box, and then grab the old packaging. We’d recycle the bubble into paper towel holders or whatever they do with it, and they’d sanitize the ice packs and reuse them. Boxes we just put into recycling
That's a great system!
Seems like a misnomer.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 I suspect the "imperfect" part of the name likely comes from starting as a project to get fruit/vegetable that is edible but doesn't look perfectly like the standard model apple people want in the supermarket. And I'm sure there are batches of products that don't meet quality control while being totally safe to eat as well for other products.
I had quite a few opportunities to buy mostly vegetables and sometimes fruit well below normal cost per kg at a nearby store that only sells fruits and vegetables. One of those batches was contracted to go to a supermarket chain, but because the apples were a bit too light they couldn't be sold normally. It's kinda baffling how common it is for food not to make it to human consumption merely because of a slight deviation in shape/colour/weight.
I've never been bothered by that, but I guess my parents having a small garden in the first house we grew up and 4 productive fruit trees in the second house while growing up was a good way to learn that not everything will look perfect to be edible.
I was at Imperfect Foods for a bit and the amount of orders with just a handful of items (like two lemons) was just ridiculous. We only had ONE box size.
I was hoping that if bubblewrap disappeared in my lifetime, it would be because we found something much more sustainable. Although I'll miss bubblewrap, I'm excited for the changing times!
Surely there's got to be some way to make sustainable packaging that also goes pop pop pop.
A friends new internet equipment came with the packing paper that was covered in colouring book images AND contained a small package of golf sized pencil crayons. It delighted her.
I ordered a secondhand item online and the seller packaged it with ball pit balls! That delighted me. LOL
Love that. We need more of that.
i order MTG trading cards sometimes and people usually package the cards between lesser played and low demand ones. Which is super fun because every once in a while one of these "trash" cards is actually good enough to play in a specific niche, and i'll end up with a card in my deck that i didn't know existed at all
i get unreasonably excited for the shredded cardboard/paper packaging because the worms in my worm farm go WILD for those. i never have happier worms then when i get the fancy shampoo that ships with that stuff.
oh to be a worm in ur worm farm 🪱
@@answerinprogress oh to be a worm. that's it i just want to be a worm
So what I'm hearing is, you _would_ love them if they were a worm
Melissa’s continuity from video to video is unmatched.
The real issue is the ludicrously large cardboard boxes in relation to the item inside it - leading to excessive packing inside material. The right box for each box would really help. Cardboard boxes are biodegradable, after all. And scrunched up paper as packing inside would also be biodegradable.
Melissa having infinite pasta is such great continuity
Craft sticks. They even sell them with notches, so you can make boxes with them. They even come with instructions on how to make boxes with them.
Yup, they're super handy, and use the main wood part of the tree. Also their production creates the sawdust. Though there are some major problems with shipping sawdust . . .
If Taha wasn't trying to use items he already had (I assume he collected those sticks from outside), then buying some wood shavings or straw from a pet store would have also been much easier as well.
I like the idea of packing boxes with pasta. You'd get free food whenever you order something.
I wonder what the optimal pasta shape for protection is.
Packing pasta would probably not be recommended for consumption though, since the factory making it might not be set up for all the necessary food safety standards, or it could be bundled into void-fill bubbles that aren't made for keeping it safe and fresh for consumption.
video starts at 07:38
Novel battery technologies are great, but as far as I'm aware no known chemistry can beat anything lithium can do in a closed system (ie not fuel cells). The main use of novel batteries is in low to medium demand applications where cost and/or resource consumption is the main issue (eg EVs are surprisingly tolerant of less than optimal batteries, so some Chinese manufacturers are about to start selling Sodium ion based vehicles, which have shorter ranges but are still good enough for commuting and are much cheaper). This and other somewhat weight tolerant applications like ultra low power devices that don't need much battery and such are the best target for batteries made of scavenged materials, saving the lithium for higher performance applications.
I think one of the main reasons organic matter (hay, sawdust) isn't used anymore is that there's a higher chance of insects/rodents or whatever critters and mold that can join the journey. This could lessen the chance of bringing in species that are not endemic to the region. But also, with the volume of items being shipped... i don't think there'd be enough hay etc. We buy bulk, and for bigger breakable items, it's usually delivered by sea in wooden crates stuffed with old newspapers. Not plastic at least.
Thank you for making this video. Even though our world is so behind, you definitely create a grounding in the PRESENT and past, and POSSIBLE futures. I love the way this video has me thinking. Where does the money come from? Where does the manufacturing happen, where does the manufacturing finish? How does it get there? Where does the product go after it’s use? Thank you for this I have sooooo much faith in the future. I believe that we could have a great future in transportation and materials, as well as disposal. Thank you for this!!!!
the tea company I buy from uses the extra tea bag stuff from between where the round tea bags are cut out as their packing material, and bonus it makes the box smell really good
I love how they need to blur iphone's cameras 'cause of OPPO sponsorship
i was wondering why! thank you!
lmao I noticed that also but didn't know why
And that MacBook’s Apple logo
What they can’t censor is FaceTime… which is an Apple-exclusive
"There's no standard-issue nature" is a very good motto.
The sawdust idea is solid. It's or was still used for eggs where I am from when you don't have egg crates. Sawmills or carpenters readily make them and its waste for them and a bag of sawdust costs under $1. Also, you can use the sawdust as cat litter
I like this stylistic choice for a collaborative video. The back and forth research with Sabrina as the host is solid
Did no one send/receive care packages in college with pop-corn as packing? It works great on so many levels, including the ability to interlock like foam "peanuts" do. And it's a lot tastier than the biodegradable peanuts, too (though my composting worms seem to love the stuff).
Melissa definitely won this one for me. Sock egg FTW.
I'm on Taha's side because he went through all that work to make sawdust and it WORKED!
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 Must admit, that was definitely dedication to the cause!
If they introduced the egg drop experiment like this in high school I probably would've been a better student but man is the history behind packaging so cool. Love that AIP team is getting sponsored by OPPO's inspiration challenge too, feels more aligned to be featuring creative solutions and informational deep dives that give a better understanding of the world at work. Great video!
I love how _wildly_ differently each of you approached the problem! Fantastic stuff mates ❤
My sister and I entered our elementary school's egg drop contest for several years in a row. My parents weren't the type to do our homework for us, but on this one Dad made a series of egg copters and we took credit. Gold spray painted eggs (made of wood) make great and apparently long-lasting trophies
we need more micelium based packaging. there were a few companies i were following online pre-covid that were making packaging foam and boxes, hell, even caskets, made out of fungus mycelium that was baked to be inert so it doesnt effect the package. fully decomposes, can be grown and shaped into any packaging needs in bulk, uses food waste to be grown. all around amazing. i pivoted away from my brain drain social media after a while and lost track, but the foundation for those packaging options exist! theres even mushroom bacon that people can eat and i think its from the same type of fungus, i think it was a new york company
Taha's egg falling out reminds me of my high school egg dropper because it also fell out and somehow survived, but the best part was that we had a paper plate on top of our dropper to add a bit of air resistance acting as a pseudo parachute, and the egg managed to land perfectly onto the plate when the dropper hit the ground.
It makes me so happy to see how many innovative, environmentally sound products are being worked on :)
Love Taha's goblin palisade
My senior project in college to get my Materials Engineering degree was manufacturing and testing thin films of PLA-Nanocellulose plastic blends. I was trying to improve the strength of the films (PLA film is not very strong) while not sacrificing the biodegradability. Now I wish I had kept some of my samples to test how biodegradable my PLA blend was!
I love these videos. They have history, comedy, real experience/research, and very good editing.
Everything in these videos are made perfectly.
This is a cool video! This only touches the surface of modern packaging and modern sustainable packaging. There are lots of standards for the integrity of packaging and for testing. And in terms of materials, there's cut and folded paper, molded fiber, and mycelium that are all used in product specific packaging design.
this channel is literally answering the questions i didn't know i asked
Sabrina's confidence in launching the plane with a raw egg gives me life. Could have practiced with a boiled egg until flying smoothly, and then switched the eggs, but noooooo. Not for Sabrina! HARD MODE BABY!!!
This would be such a fun challenge for science classes! Use stuff already found in the recycling bin or destined for the trash can/compost to insulate your egg against a fall! PHYSICS BABY!
I just LOVE watching this lady,😍😍even when she's talking about bubble wrap alternatives
I am so glad you mentioned that PLA doesn't really biodegrade, because it's a common misconception.
I learned about it from Maker's Muse, a 3d printing channel on youtube.
grass clippings can be dried in an interlocking way to make a sheet of soft padding that could replace bubble wrap, and reuse otherwise compost waste.
Luffa (vegetable sponges) would be lighter, and have more use later. It is very cheap and easy to grow.
Soon as PLA was mentioned I was abt to jump to my keyboard and be the "yeah, but pla is rlly rigid so it snaps easily + doesn't even really biodegrade
2:13 we did lol
Whenever I go back to my hometown, my family would put eggs with rice husk so I can carry them back to the city. It was very useful the eggs stay break free
Just Taha being relatable by not fact-checking that one google search 😂
Oppo where so petty they made them blur the the distinctive camera of their iphones. Allowing an advertiser to dictate video content outside of the ad(even if its seems meaningless) feels like a slippery slope.
I couldn't figure out why they'd done that. Makes sense. I assumed it must have included a reflection of something.
I love the bubble pouches, if stomp them, mash them, or crush them you get a very loud pop that scares the hell out anyone not aware.
I think the fact that school had us protect eggs using sticks and newspaper proves that sustainable packaging is definitely possible, at least in the small scale.
Ok but this channel is basically 3am questions condensed in a channel.
I love how y’all make me interested in stuff I’ve never been knowledgeable of and now I’m so invested 😂
When I did this in school I had a similar approach to Sabrina’s airplane. I attached a container of jello to the top of a wide frisbee and stuck the egg in it. My teacher kinda treated me like I was cheating but hey, it didn’t break.
14:14 WAIT, WHERE DID THE BUBBLE WRAP GO :0 as always I just get distracted in their goofy stories, but tbf great story-telling/a journey
I use cereal in bags, or tea, or bags of potato chips,
cause all come in a plastic bag filled with air already,
and most teas come in single packets, so I can fill up a box with teabags - so it fills up and stops stuff from moving,
and add a pack of chips of cereal
and you can eat the cereal, tea and chips after and recycle the plastic that’s left
I work in a small coop business and we usually recycle all the box and box stuffing we receive from distribution to send to our customers. We also give the boxes away to people (it's excellent for people moving house). We still have to buy cushioned enveloppe though since the package we send are a lot smaller than the one we receive and would love to just wrap the product in box stuffing and in a paper bag but unfortunately, the customer doesn't like the diy presentation it gives out even if it's safe and sound for transport (so we're stock with buying cushioned enveloppe).
I would also love to be able to buy the more friendly-envrionnement packaging but we don't set our prices (it's set by the distribution) so we can't afford those higher quality enveloppe without starting to lose money every-time we ship an item.
The real environmentally friendly solutions we found in the end to radically reduce waste were:
1-Reuse as much packaging, enveloppe and stuffing as possible (they can also serve as a "bag" for people who need to transport their purchases home even if it's not that convenient)
2-That means you should be careful when opening packages to be able to reuse it.
3-Do not encourage online shopping for people who can travel to the shop (by walk, bicycle, subway, etc. by car, the footprint would be greater than postal service). Anyway, you have more profit if people buy in store anyway because you lose a lot on margins when shipping (because you have to be concurrent to giants who will offer better price on shipping and you have to at least 1/2 match it).
4-We deliver by hand packages to very close houses (don't forget to count those hour in your salary, but it's always cheaper to pay your employee to walk 10-15 minutes there than to pay the 8$ [minumum!] fee for postal service).
5-Use bicycle delivery when possible (in France, they really develop those delivery service by bike to a whole other level, I saw amazing things just by looking out a windows of an hotel where someone was taking all the hotel sheets to get wash in a big bike-trailer and getting delivered normal package by another trailored-bike postal service).
6-Buy in bulk the rest of packages you need when it won't be enough (because in small amount, you will use way more plastic packaging for the 5 cushioned enveloppe than the cardboard box with no plastic of the 100 enveloppes).
I love how Melissa is still looking for ways to use all of the pasta she had from a few videos ago 😂
The fac that they can make such high quality Video's with such accurate history Is so shocking.
This video made me really want my package to get here sooner
1:44 sabrina really just told him skill issue😂
4:40
“Hellooooo”
“I’m so tired”
I deeply relate
I have a fond nostalgia for egg drops. Great video!
I like how you were discussing the actual topic and seamlessly transition to talking about ads. That was epic writing. However, forgive me if I found it funny to see your blurred phones at the beginning of the video only to see them clearly at the end 😅
Thick wool sock ftw. That's how I used to pack my mugs when moving. Roll up one sock and put i side mug, wrap other sock(s) around outside of mug, tuck into box where it won't move around.
I like how Melissa's pasta and Terry came back for this video. The AiP lore expands
3 VIDEOS LESS THAN IN A MONTH??😭😭I LOVE Y’ALL GUYS
The best way to start the day. Loved the chapters’ titles as well.
This was basically watching 3 non science background people attempt an egg drop. We can hate cardboard as much as we want but right now it's our most practical packaging solution. It might not seem like much but cardboard is an incredible material.
Lush started out as a company packing products with popcorn. I was wondering if that was gonna be mentioned! :)
When I was a kid the local recreation center had an annual egg drop where kids wrapped up an egg in a container and it was dropped from the roof of the building, about 2 stories. The ones that survived won a Hershey bar.
TERRY!!!! THE KING HAS RETURNED!!!
I'm surprised that they don't use sawdust as a packing material anymore - maybe because of allergy/respiratory issues. Also, never knew about biodegradable plastics before. I hope it starts to see more widespread use.
I remember hearing that in the 18th and 19th centuries they would sometimes use lentils for packaging.
I feel like the allergy and respiratory issues could be at least mitigated by containing the sawdust in some kind of wrapping, maybe using the biodegradable plastic. Need less plastic, use up otherwise garbage sawdust
i for one dont want to open a package to find it full of saw dust that will spill out everywhere and make a huge mess. imagine having to sweep/vacume anytime you open an Amazon package. it sounds worse than packing peanuts... and if you are using biodegradable wrapping to contain it... why not just fill it with air instead? its less shipping weight.
I'm not surprised at all. Two big reasons that are fundamental and not fixable.
1. Sawdust is just too tasty to microbes and fungi of all kinds. The shredding of the wood exposes lots of surface area to live on and eat. Everything loves finely-ground cellulose. You would have to soak it in its weight in anti-life chemicals to fix this problem. And that gets to be bad for the humans, animals, and environment. Sure, you can say "just keep it dry, and it won't be a problem", but have you ever received a dry package on a wet day? Shipping is just like that. Nobody's paid enough to care.
2. Sure there's microbes in it, there's microbes everywhere, you just replace it after a bit . . . NOPE! Microbes make heat, and heat makes fire! Piles of wood of every chip size have to be monitored for heat and smoldering, because they'll do it spontaneously, from inside the pile, on a damp day.
Id guess its because of how flamable it is. Imagine one spark getting into a container filled with packages of sawdust. It can alco explode... Another issue is moisture. Noone wants to recieve a box full of mold.
That is because sawdust is too valuable now to be used for packing material. Sawdust is a key component used in a countless products. For example, all that cheap IKEA, Amazon, Walmart furniture. Thats not made from solid wood. They are all manufactured wood products, like particleboard, made from sawdust and binders to make a wood like product.
what i love about this video is that this is a real problem i think of every time i order something.
another approach I've seen was from a wallet company. they make all of the packaging reusable in some capacity. the box turns into a piggy bank and even their message card can be planted and grows into a tree.
there is improvement to be made, and companies like amazon just don't care enough to bother
This is wild bc right before this popped in my feed I had the rare bubble wrap in one of my packages (and oddly for a bike helmet from Amazon). It was non-traditional bubble wrap, but still.
I think, one key part is not mentioned here. Weight. For sure, the solution like wool or saw dust will protect the package. But the key advantage of the air bubblewrap is, that air has close to 0 weight. And if we want to talk about sustainability, material is important, but transporting more weight also means more CO2.
0:59 Okay but the editor masking a moving blur on Sabrina's camera lens so the reflection of her window doesn't doxx her needs a raise.
I can not believe Sabrina thought that paper plane would work.
Shout out to wikipedia for leading me here after i searched up sabrina cruz cuz i was wondering what happened to crash course kids
National thing? The lastest things I’ve ordered (thermos from Sweden and poppers from France) that was delivered this week both had bubble wrap. No change in how common bubble wrap is here in Northern mainland Europe.
It's definitely much rarer here in Australia. Most stuff seems to come in shredded cardboard or those large packing pillow things.
Taiwan got a new solution recently.A e-commerce company called PChome, instead of using bubble wrap, puts some 150-sheet, bad-quality, cheap tissue with its brand name on it. Which is not a bad idea.
The cost of the pack of tissue is almost the same as all that bubble wrap kind of stuff, also useful to the customer so it won't be all waste.
Shipping with Luffa (vegetable sponge) as filler would be better.
It is organic, easy and cheap to grow, degrades fast in nature, it is light, and can be used for personal hygiene and house cleaning before discarting.
@@MarcusBuer Shipping with Luffa is a really good idea!
But there is a little historical context: Taiwan is a small island, and almost every resource depends on international trade. So local agriculture hardly has the margin to make Luffa efficiently.
So by local resource, a pack of tissue might be a more affordable choice.
I wish external factors like weather was also put into consideration. Like what would happen to a paper based package if it was delivered during a storm?
As soon as I saw you and your vid the first vid I saw from you I went “oh she’s like me” thank you for making your content KEEP DOING WHAT YOU DO ❤😊
I feel that this video could have talked about Fungi packaging companies that, although still expensive, are really promising in developing fast degrading packages because, after all, they are merely Fungi.
I like how you blur your camera so people dont talk about what iPhone you have (or some samsung phones, but its size and case look alot like apple so I'm guess iPhone lol)
Damn, so many uploads now! Keep up the great work ❤
every video keeps getting more unpredictable
I really do enjoy your videos. It's very entertaining and fun to watch. Not only can I learn a lot, It also made me laugh and smile. Thank you❤
Love the continued joke of naming the machine Terry. Because again my name is Terry.
Those air bags are so satisfying to pop because they are so loud :3
I have a question for you to ponder. If Plastics don't degrade very fast and can be manipulated like wood, then why don't we use them in housing construction in place of wood?
I love that real quick shot of Rachel Maksy's bubble wrap dress! I wonder if a SPAM container would have worked too or if it would have been too small for your average egg...
I love how frightened and disturbed Sabrina is in the thumbnail
I learned and laughed so hard 😂 keep having fun and keep going please 🥺
We need an Answer in Progress vs. William Osman egg drop challenge now
*clicking to watch a video about bubble wrap*
*ends up being a video about eggs*