Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Jeff said:

People are learning that home delivery isn't just more convenient, it's actually more efficient and has a lower carbon footprint (10 people individually driving to a store is not as efficient as 1 person driving to 10 homes).

So, interested in this because I have seen plenty of arguments that home delivery is very wasteful. Would this hold true large scale, or only if certain homes are involved, or certain routes. What about frequency, with home delivery I might order 4 times this week, vs if I made the trip I would have grabbed everything at once to reduce the frequency of trips.

ShaneDenmark said:

Gonch- Didn’t you just finish up a ridiculously long hotel stay right before the pandemic hit?

Yeah. After almost 8 months in the hotel, it was about six weeks before we were officially in pandemic mode.

But again, I still insist the Pandemic effect on what we've done the past two years has been minimal at worst. Changing the circumstances around how we do those things is where the lost normality comes from.

Maybe I'm overlooking something, but most of everyone's examples either don't apply or, more likely, we didn't quit doing those things.

Omicron surge shows signs of easing in states hit early by the fast-spreading variant

In New York, the seven-day average of daily new cases has been declining since hitting a record high of 85,000 per day on Jan. 9, according to Hopkins data. Cases there doubled during a number of seven-day periods in late December and early January, but are down sharply from last week to an average of 51,500. In New York City, average daily cases have fallen by 31% over the past week, state health department data shows.

In late December, Washington, D.C. had the highest number of Covid infections on a per capita basis than any other state, peaking at an average of 2,500 per day. That's since dropped to 1,700, the data shows.

And in neighboring Maryland, daily infections hit a pandemic high on Jan. 8 but are down 27% from a week ago.

Experts predict the omicron wave will fall almost as quickly as it rose, leaving the U.S. with relatively low cases of Covid sometime in February or March, with cities hit the earliest likely reaching that point sooner.

The only real big inconvenience for us has really just involved travel.

For example, we have a flight/trip booked to/from LA in a few weeks to do some park hopping and such in SoCal... However, given the trends, I'd say there is a fairly decent chance that things could potentially close down again there (huge increases in LA in COVID recently) and we may have to cancel/postpone, yet again. Holding on as long as we can though... This has been the third or forth trip now that has had to be cancelled/postponed due to COVID. Thought sticking domestic would be 'safer' than trying to plan a big international trip, but it seems like it didn't help much.

Tickets are refundable and all that, but I am hoping it doesn't come to that (again).

The changes are in part going to depend on what you do for a living. As I said before, certain professions have fundamentally changed. Healthcare, education, childcare, retail, travel, some kinds of manufacturing, etc., are way different now. Let's not forget that a lot of people lost jobs, even if temporarily. The labor market is fundamentally different. If you're talking about your own personal consumer behavior, then yes, it's probably been pretty close to the old normal for close to a year. That's why the free-dumb people can suck it, because they're being entitled whiny snowflakes who have no legitimate grievance.

TheMillenniumRider said:

So, interested in this because I have seen plenty of arguments that home delivery is very wasteful. Would this hold true large scale, or only if certain homes are involved, or certain routes. What about frequency, with home delivery I might order 4 times this week, vs if I made the trip I would have grabbed everything at once to reduce the frequency of trips.

Last mile for anything is historically the most expensive per mile and has the largest carbon footprint. Everyone moving stuff to your house in the last mile at this point is optimizing the crap out of that. Even a decade ago, UPS was using algorithms to avoid left turns. Again, given my example, the difference in miles traveled results in exponential savings, even if you're not particularly efficient in ordering things. Amazon even has a thing now where you can choose to get stuff on the same weekly schedule, which reduces trips (they're going by your house anyway), but more importantly boxes.

Why doesn't Amazon have a box return program now? It seems like a natural thing. They will be back to my house. I'll have something shipped again. Why not reuse the box and shipping materials?

For the same reason most returns just end up in a dumpster: too expensive.

While things are closer to normal now for our family in the early months of the pandemic most of our household habits were upended. I was home from work, my high schooler went remote, my college kid went to all online except for the lab classes that were outright cancelled. He will be graduating one year late because of it. Stores I normally shopped at were closed because they were considered "nonessential". The BMV was closed preventing high schooler from getting a learner's permit to drive for several months. We were in the final stretch of completing a house sale and settling of an estate which got delayed and the house sale almost cancelled because lenders tightened requirements when the pandemic hit while the buyers were already near the end of the process and then being told they no longer qualified. We tried to keep doing as many of the things we normally did but for us the shutdowns and restrictions made life anything but normal and routine. As recently as 3 weeks ago the local BMV was still making people wait outside if there were more than about 15 people in the lobby.

I rarely throw away Amazon boxes, only if they are for very small items. I save them and, once a year or so, I set them on my porch on a dry day, put a come-and-get-it ad on Facebook and Next Door and they're usually gone in an hour or two. I don't curbside recycle anything since almost all of that ends up in the landfill anyway.

I usually use the boxes for donating stuff to the thrift store.

Do your communities not recycle cardboard? My boxes get chucked to the curb on Tuesday night.

I looked in to home delivery for food and I just don't really like it. I like to pick out fresh fruit and vegetables the way I like them. I don't like substitutions, so I like to be able to browse and see what's available, and what's new or on sale.

I stop at the store on the way home from work, so it really contributes no more to anything detrimental. Although there are two left turns on my way home, so there's that.

I deal with recycling with my job and I have had multiple providers tell me that curbside recycling is a feel good myth. It is typically picked up unsorted and very few providers have the capacity to sort as it is dropped off of the truck. If they can sort it, they go for the easily pulled items that have value like cardboard and aluminum. I can almost guarantee you that plastic is going in the landfill. There are so many varieties that have to be separated to be recycled that it is rarely worth the time and effort. Electronics are probably the worst. They're bundled and shipped overseas where cheap labor harvests the valuable parts and the remains are typically burned.

We have curbside recycling and the recycling plant is in our township but they have only had a market for certain plastics and metals, the buyers for paper and cardboard have upped their standards so ours doesn't always make the grade and they haven't been able to sell the glass in a while but are grinding it to use as a gravel substitute for the landfill for the trucks to drive on. I put cardboard in the recycle bin but most of the larger, nicer boxes we reuse. I feel bad about the amount of bubble wrap that gets used for thigs that don't even need it and now that we haven't been selling on ebay for some time we don't usually need much of it ourselves. Plastic grocery bags get reused, I take them to work and we wrap the soiled depends and such in them before they go in the trash to keep the grooming room from smelling funky. I also give them to a coworker who uses them at home for the same thing with her disabled husband. I've been getting some nonperishible groceries shipped but I haven't done the pick up or delivery for anything frozen or produce yet.

Original concept was reduce, reuse and recycle. But many people just focus on the recycle part. They don't want to stop using as much stuff as they want and reusing is often a pain. So let me toss some things in the green or blue can I put at the bottom of my driveway once a week and cleanse me of all my environmental sins if you will. And I think many people (likely most) have absolutely no concern at all for shopping online reducing a carbon footprint (to the extent it does). They are looking for the convenience and nothing else.

Amazon still has not quite figured out the reducing waste part.

Even when I make a large order and specifically select "ship all on same day to use less boxes" option, I end up getting my shipment on the same day, in a wide variety of various boxes... So it's basically worthless most of the time.

And not only that, at a given time there will be sometimes 5+ Amazon vans driving around the neighborhood throughout the day, if not more. Can they not consolidate the shipments a bit better and use less frequent, larger trucks? One large morning truck and one large evening one to cover the times/later delivery options or something.

Walking the dog in the evening, I have seen THREE Amazon vans on the exact same, small, residential street. Insane.

SteveWoA- You have to remember your order might be coming from multiple different warehouses. They aren’t going to unpack your items when they arrive at one warehouse and put them all in a big box. But they will send all those smaller boxes on the same truck to be delivered in one shot.

My biggest gripe with Amazon being wasteful is when they use a 12”x12”x6” box for a 4”x4”x3” item.

What ever happened to using drones to drop off deliveries?

My community does have recycling. I was just thinking that the effort (footprint) of recycling that material must be greater than simply picking it up and reusing it. Maybe I'm wrong and I guess there would be logistical challenges with the Amazon drivers juggling the stuff to be delivered with the boxes to be sent back.

As to the effectiveness of recycling I think that is largely dependent on where in the country you are. If you are near a processing plant, and there are companies also near that plant who can make use of the materials, then it is likely a good bet. I'm told that approximately 80% of the recycled materials in my community is actually being processed and sold into the market. The other 20% is going to landfill. That 20% is made up of materials that should not have been put in the recycling container to begin with and material that has been compromised by garbage.

In NYC, it's pretty clear that Amazon would rather have X% of items stolen than worry about ringing your doorbell, finding out you're not home, and bringing the item back to the warehouse to try again the next day. So it doesn't surprise me at all that they aren't interested in collecting boxes from customers.

I do suspect that most of our "recycling" is going to landfills, even though the city sends around separate trucks for it.

Back to Covid for a minute. I had an interesting experience at Disney when we were leaving yesterday. We got on the monorail with a couple who had a young child...stroller age. I don't know the entire story but the guy was railing...through his son...about the requirement that he wear a mask inside at Disney. He was blaming Biden for it (though this is a private company that has made that determination) and citing all kinds of nonsense. I mean, if I went into details about it I'm sure I'd be accused of picking on a certain voting demographic. Let's just say it lacked any factual information.

He continues telling this 2-3 year old that Trump was the real President and the election was a sham. His wife, to her credit, was repeatedly imploring her husband to shut up. (A sentiment that I shared but decided to keep to myself lest I end up in a story on WFTV). There were a few others in the ride cabin with us. We were all looking at each other with bewilderment. Perhaps there were some mental health issues at play. At one point he suggested that his son pull the emergency handle when they missed their "stop" at the Polynesian. (They were on the Express Monorail). In hindsight it is not surprising that we would have people so completely snowed that they would storm the Capitol on January 6th.

It's probably a good thing no one interrupted. I'm sure his 3 year old was getting a valuable lesson that he'll remember for life.