Wineries please note - I am sick of styro shippers

My Bedrock shipment arrived today, and it’s an unholy mess of broken bits of styrofoam. The spring Bedrock shipment was the same way. Bits of styro all over the place. Recent Lagier Meredith-bits of styrofoam. Spring Once & Future-bits of styrofoam. You name a winery using styro, and the result is the same. It falls apart in shipping, and it’s a goddamn mess.

The shippers are a mess. They never decompose. Please for the love of all things good, stop using f-ing styrofoam. The insulating benefit is negligible. The PITA factor is immense.

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+100

+1 million

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+1000

HATE when those specks of styrofoam are all over the bottles. Feel bad when I recycle the cardboard boxes…yet have to throw away the styro!

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p.s. my wife has made peace with all the wine I buy, but she gets royally pissed about all the styrofoam pieces that end up everywhere!

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Where do I sign the petition?

to David Bueker, you wrote about styrofoam: “The insulating benefit is negligible.”

Please present your evidence. My evidence is anecdotal, but based on thousands of shipments over decades, and that evidence is that the insulating benefit is substantial.

Before the board turns into a pack of hyenas out for my blood, please note that my company uses heavy cardboard shippers, which are also good insulation. We pay more to ship them, because shipping prices are always based to some extent on weight. There are blatant ecological effects to shipping heavier packages. Anybody who claims to have analyzed the cost/benefits of shipping heavy, recyclable, compostable cardboard over light, non-recyclable, non-biodegradable styrofoam, please please send me your detailed analyses.

A thought:
In the long run, plastic may be a greater environmental threat than global warming. How much is in the oceans, therefore the seafood you eat, and what are the long term effects of consuming plastic?

Please discuss in 500 words or more.

Thank you.

Dan Kravitz

Bedrock shipments seem to always be worst than others.

When I moved here I was thrilled to learn Los Angeles recycles styrofoam. I have since learned that Los Angeles “recycles” styrofoam.

As a retailer and wine shipper, there is nothing better than styrofoam in this day and age for a number of reasons, but I understand the hatred. We hate how many of the deliveries arrive to us packaged in styro that have the bottoms and/or tops knocked out. There are a number of producers that sell substandard styro packaging at dirt cheap prices. We pay about $8.60 for a 12 pack from our current distributor. After bubble wrap and tape, no labor included, say about $11.00 The competitors are offering up product for half the price, half the styrofoam and fat bottles, Chard, PN, don’t fit in them.

Because of that, we have packaged with bubble wrap under the styro, around each bottle and on top of the styro. Added protection in case the Samsonite gorilla is working your neighborhood.

Styro is available with ice pack slots so we can try to save the $1,000 worth of wine shipped from coast to coast because the buyer wants ground shipping in June.

To date, we’ve had three shipments in pulp sent to us that were destroyed. We have lost one shipment in styro by damage and it was a train derailment. We have lost one case of wine shipped ground in the dead of winter to Chicago that froze and pushed the corks.

They are getting better at pulp but still can’t provide adequate insulation nor equal crush resistance that styro provides. It takes me ten minutes to break down each damaged styro shipper for recycling, something I don’t enjoy, but if you demand non styro packaging, you pay full insurance value of the wine and agree to hold me harmless for your decision to use pulp.

David - don’t forget about the cat aspect of styrofoam pieces.
catstyrofoam.jpg

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A few thoughts:

  1. Maybe ask the specific wineries you buy from not to ship in styro?

  2. Get a little citrus oil or some acetone or any organic solvent and you can turn that big hunk of styro into a cup or two of hard plastic. The solvent lets the air out of the styrofoam and reduces it into a fraction of what it was. The airless styrofoam is good as glue if you use it before it hardens, or you can dump it into molds and make plastic shapes. The consistency is like melting fast food mozzarella - gummy and sticky.

  3. Grind up the styrofoam and mix it into concrete when you’re doing a concrete project. You can make concrete/styro bricks and they’re good insulators.

As far as plastic in the environment, the city of Los Angeles is going to grind up plastic bottles and use them in pavement. They think it will take a few hundred thousand out per mile. But nobody’s talking about any leachate, etc.

I agree. Just got done vacuuming 2 cases of bottles.

The only thing this reminds me of is that Ive got about 10 shipments coming and no room for any of them in my cellar

Terrific.

What projects do you recommend for used corks? neener

Gotta say that I’ve gotten various shipments in styrofoam but it seems Bedrock is the only one where the styro is all beat up.

Donate the styro shippers to your local winemonger. Then it becomes someone else’s problem.

I’d pay for the insurance and accept any heat damage risk, but I’ve never once been given the option.

And +1 Bedrock shippers seem to be extra fragile. And also total bullshit to use styro. C’mon Morgan, enough.

That’s not exactly how the environment works.

Reusing things instead of throwing them away after first use is a pretty well established good environmental practice.

I now take all my styrofoam boxes to Hi Time so they can use them. They seem fine with accepting them.

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