A green-fingered gran has slammed Amazon over 'ridiculous' excessive packaging when a gardening tool she ordered arrived in a giant 6ft-long box that towered over her. Jan Tullick was gobsmacked when her doorbell rang and she discovered a delivery driver on her doorstep clutching the huge box she believed was for a neighbour.
But after confirming the package was for her, Jan took it in and opened it - only to find the £24.99 digging bar she'd ordered to break up clay rattling around in the massive box. The cardboard box was so enormous, bemused daughter Nicola Fail, 40, quipped that Jan must have been secretly shopping for a sofa.
Stunned by the 'joke' packaging that the Roughneck Gorilla Bar turned up in, petite Jan, who's 5ft 6ins, posed next to the big box and the item. The 64-year-old's 6ft 3ins grandson Alfie Collins, 14, also got inside the box to illustrate just how huge it is - stooping down to clamber inside before popping the lid when he stood up straight.
The retired carer is now urging the retail giant to 'cut their packaging down' as they're 'not saving the environment'. Amazon said it was 'committed to reducing packaging waste and using less packaging material'.
Jan, from Gateshead, said: " When I saw it come up the path I said to my daughter 'it must be for next door because I've never ordered anything that big'. When I opened the door the lad said it was for my house number.
"I told him 'the only thing I've ordered is a digging stick, like a metal rod' and he said 'good luck to you getting rid of this box'. When we opened it, well I couldn't believe my eyes.
"The box was huge, about 6ft tall, and the item was only 48 inches. It had a piece of brown paper wrapped round it. There was plenty of room in there, my grandson got in it. All they had to do was wrap it in plastic instead of putting it in a ginormous box.
"My daughter thought I'd been doing some secret shopping because I'm terrible on Amazon. I just thought it was a huge joke, it was ridiculous. They should really cut their packaging down. Saving the environment? Amazon doesn't."
It was the day after breaking down the huge box so it would fit into her recycling bin, that Jan realised she'd ordered the wrong item and needed to return it. Jan said information provided with the delivery stated that returns must be sent in the packaging the item was sent in, so she had to spend time taping the box back together before it was collected.
Jan said: "It was only after [that] I realised I'd ordered the wrong item and it had to be sent back in the same packaging it arrived in so I had to stick all the box back together. Even the lad that came to take it away said 'oh is it a big 'un?' I explained what was in it and he said 'you're joking'.
Nicola, who owns florist Butterflies and Blooms, said she was so stunned by the size of the packaging, she whipped out her camera and asked mum Jan to stand next to it. Nicola said: "The guy delivered it to the door at about 7.15pm. My mam couldn't get over the size of it. She answered the door and she said to him 'you'll not believe what's in it, it's tiny'.
"We thought she'd been ordering something sneaky like a sofa but when she brought it in and opened it there was just this tiny thing wrapped in paper lying at the bottom of this box. My son Alfie who's 6ft 3 had to bend down to fit in the box properly but he did stand up and pop the top of it before we realised we had to send it back.
"It was a ridiculous size. It was far too big a box to send anything like that out in, especially when we're all trying to be a bit more environmentally friendly. It certainly wasn't breakable, it's made of metal."
An Amazon spokesman said: "Amazon is committed to reducing packaging waste and using less packaging material. Initiatives like the Frustration-Free Packaging Programmes encourage manufacturers to package their products in easy-to-open packaging that is 100% recyclable and ready to ship to customers without Amazon boxes.
"Since 2015, Amazon has reduced the weight of outbound packaging per shipment by more than 36%, and eliminated more than one million tonnes of packaging material, the equivalent of two billion shipping boxes."
