Crazy Rubbish

I haven't written on Equipment Notes for some time. I will do again, but was prompted for a follow-up to a post some 5 years ago called Absolute Rubbish where I bemoaned the quantity of packing for some items sent over to Cyprus from the UK.

A couple of days ago I received a parcel from Farnell. They are the company that we buy a lot of electronic components from.

Just for scale, the box is approximately 40cm long by 10cm x 10cm.

I did know this was going to be crazy, but not just how crazy. The reason I knew it was going to be crazy was the warning sticker on the side.

I had ordered a Lithium battery for a real time clock module for our boat. Same sort of thing that everyone has inside every computer and every mobile phone and... the list goes on.

The lithium battery is the size of a watch battery. The biggest danger I would have thought is losing the battery inside the box, even despite the voluminous paper packing!

So in this world where we are trying hard to recycle we use a totally extravagant packing (wouldn't a jiffy bag do?) just to send a watch battery and comply with some outrageous law...