The extreme waste of LEGO packaging.

[inxt-generation]

It has been recently brought to my attention of the waste that LEGO has with packaging. A few TECHNIC sets I recently got had boxes two-thirds full of air. A single motor from LEGO came in a 12x8x6.5 inch box.
http://youtu.be/t0xMY6Nw_80

What are your thoughts?

[mattallen37]

With a company as big as Lego, and a shipping department as big as theirs, it's impractical to make everything most physically efficient. If the person packaging it can save a bit of time by grabbing one of 3 box sizes (instead of 20 box variations), it can save a lot of time in the long run. Also, less box choices means far less hassle for ordering more, storage, etc. This is just my guess, and I agree, that box is a bit bigger than necessary. I've seen a USB BT dongle (maybe 1 x 1.5 x 0.5cm) shipped in a box that was over 30 x 30 x 30cm.

[spillerrec]

I remember Lego being asked about it and making an official response. I don't remember where and the article might have been in Danish... Well, I will try to look for it tomorrow.
Anyway, they admitted that it wastes some resources, that it is more inefficient for transportation and that it might be deceiving some people into thinking that the box contains more than it actually does, however they had to do it in order to keep up with the competition. Big boxes sell better because they are more visible in the store.

It of course have nothing to do with the box from Customer Support as it is not standard packaging. I have also experienced the same when buying computer hardware online though.