farkas wrote: ⤴Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:29 am
...No, No plastic peanuts please! Unless they are edible peanuts, roasted and salted in their shell. How about using the front page of your local newspaper all crumpled up. It might be an interesting read and recyclable.
I so agree! I despise those miserable, misbegotten abominations (mild terminology)! The polystyrene foam peanuts are a nightmare to deal with due to static electricity! They fly everywhere, cling to almost everything, and the static electricity could possibly damage electronic components. Peanuts made from cornstarch are far superior, do not cling or fly around, won't damage electronic components, and are even more biodegradable than paper (they dissolve in water).
Back when I worked in shipping and receiving, we saved some of the peanuts in a large plastic trash can for reuse when shipping something out. I had to keep a spray bottle of water hanging on the top lip of the can to spray water into the can before and, often, while dumping polystyrene peanuts into the can. Otherwise, some of the blasted things would actually float up and out of the can! It was a pity that the cornstarch peanuts didn't come in often enough to let us save those.
It's easy for small items to get lost in peanuts or settle to the bottom of a box, though, so sturdy bubble wrap or air pillows (not the cheap, flimsy ones!) are much better. I save some of the good bubble wrap and pillows sometimes used in packages I receive for reuse when I have to ship something.
