I just hate the shit. I can recycle here in my town, thankfully, but hate it. I try to target my shipping dates very carefully to avoid extreme temps, but as a receiver, have no control over shipping materials.
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I agree with no styro. The waste and environmental damage for a bit of extra convenience or peace of mind in a luxury hobby is just not a good justification for me. Perhaps a small sacrifice and shallow virtue signal in an otherwise already wasteful wine shipping practice, but gotta draw a line somewhere and hope that little things can add up.
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Hey Emily,
I cannot say with vast certitude but I think the whole thing about “sitting in a warehouse over the weekend” is somewhat flawed. FedEx/UPS are pretty much now 24/7 operations. A dropoff location may be closed for the day. But the whole distribution chain is in motion. Warehouses have staff over weekends. It would be interesting to use something like an Apple tag or something else traceable for verification purposes.
There’s all kinds of local “spokes” and what I have seen is that most things get to the local central distribution point very quickly. At that location there is scale to get a package on a truck immediately and heading off. It may make stops along the way at other major hubs. Not sure. But it doesn’t just sit there on a Friday afternoon until Monday. That may have been the case awhile ago. But it’s inefficient and wasteful for FedEx/UPS. They are perpetual motion machines.
Now tracking information may not update because the shipment is in a truck and doesn’t hit another depot for some days. This may make things appear like the shipment is not moving but that is not the case.
For example, a WB Day shipment I bought.
Tendered to UPS FRIDAY 2/7 at 7:01 PM California time at a local office.
Left initial location 2/7 9:29 PM.
Arrived at central hub 2/7 11:29 PM.
Departed central hub 2/8 2:46 AM.
Expected delivery Thursday 2/13. Seven days which is standard ground California to New Jersey.
I doubt this is possible if a shipment sat over a weekend. The scale at which these companies operate is enormous. They always have trucks departing from Region A to Region B every day.
Now, I am sure there are what are called “edge cases.” Maybe you are shipping from Missoula, Montana to Luverne, Alabama. Maybe that adds some time or a shipment sits at a hub an extra day. But I don’t think this is the case. And, having spoken to drivers, warehouses are not what you’d called very well temperature controlled. In winter this probably means the warehouse where the shipments “sit” are dunno 55-60 degrees? Lots of different products are shipped FedEx/UPS. Food, actual olive oil, other things susceptible to more extreme temperature and swings. If they screwed up all these shipments they would lose a LOT of business over time.
This doesn’t mean they are perfect. But I do think a lot of time people don’t give FedEx/UPS enough credit. The thing they don’t do well is treating packages gently. They do throw shit around like you wouldn’t believe. We always put the label on the box where we think it is least likely to sit or scrape or such in an attempt to keep it as intact as possible. But that may be wishful thinking.
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That’s pretty close to my thinking, as well. I think the cardboard shippers are fine.
I’m also in the “wine is much hardier than geeks think” category so I’m not really concerned whether styrofoam might make a few degrees of difference.
And I definitely agree that nobody should get on their green high horse about it given our hobby, yet it’s always good to do what small things you can for better.
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Yeah if you aren’t going to reuse the shippers, then probably pulp is better, as long as the temperature control is fine.
Can’t believe that this oldie but goodie has not been brought back: Wineries please note - I am sick of styro shippers
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Bad news: plastic straws are coming back.
As long as it’s in a truck, it will keep moving all weekend. If it hits a depot too late on Saturday, I’ve seen it sit until Monday. I believe they work Saturday, but not Sunday most places. So I prefer Thursday departure for cross country ground shipments because that ensures it gets into a truck and travels all weekend.
Friday shipments can work if the departure is near the regional hub. But for shipments from places like Mendocino county, it needs a day to get to Oakland and then get into a long haul truck so if they ship on Friday it always sits in Oakland until Monday.
Can I vote for Brett Favre? Or Aaron Rodgers?
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I think I hedged my comment enough as there is a limit of course to what I know about FedEx/UPS operations. And as noted there are “edge case” like exceptions. What counts in this edge case bucket I can’t say. That is, “how far is too far” to keep the shipment in motion seven days a week.
Here FedEx says they offer Saturday delivery to 98% of the US population: https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/saturday-and-sunday-delivery.html
And delivery to 50% of the US population on Sunday (oddly via UPS ground, who knew). Not sure how trustworthy these links are, it is the internet after all:
https://travelwiththegreens.com/do-fedex-shipments-depart-on-sundays.html
As I doubt they send a truck home overnight with a driver a warehouse has to be open. If it’s already open it makes sense to do whatever business you can if the underlying costs support it. This might include loading outbound trucks. Sundays might not see a fully staffed warehouse but if there’s a driver with hours available and a full truck why not get things in motion?
Soft point trying to be made is that the wine world paranoia about shipments sitting in a 90 degree or 30 degree warehouse over a weekend is unfounded in the majority of cases. Not all cases, just most.
I have not had the problem of styro bits everywhere.
I have had the problem that the only recycler in Portland OR who accepted styro has stopped accepting styro.
Cardboard can be recycled at the curb. So I like it best.
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The bigger issue I’ve found there is on the tail end. Truck arrives to your local hub on Friday after the delivery vans are gone and the package sits around until Monday for delivery. Seen that happen many times. Worst case, they are busy and they don’t even unload the trailer until the next day or even the day after.
Which is why I actually prefer Thu shipments for cross country rather than Monday. Too many times there’s a slight delay and it misses the Friday delivery window and you really don’t know where it’s sitting around all weekend.
I started shifting away from a retailer that refuses to not use styro, even though it’s killing my Riesling supply.
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It’s also about the pace at which the wine changes temperature. If it takes double or triple the time in styro then it’s much better for the wine. And no risk of flash heat issues if it’s hot for say 2-3 hours on the truck.
Think about how it’s ok for subterranean cellars to shift 10-15 degrees between winter and summer. It’s ok because it’s very gradual.
I reuse almost all of my styro shippers in many ways. It does suck for the environment but I try to offset that as much as I can.
Last time I tried, my local winemonger would no longer accept my styro. And as I mentioned above, the only styro recycler here in Portland no longer accepts styro. A small town on the Oregon coast accepts styro, and I have a house there, so I drive my styro down there. Makes for a full car when I combine the styro with my dog, my three wives, and my seventeen children.
I have no idea what the small town does with the styro. I fear the worst.
+1
I’m not impressed with Styrofoam – maybe 50% of the time that I get styrofoam shippers and that bottles hove broken through the bottom of the foam. It’s a mess and they’re bad for the environment and a pain to dispose of.
I’m not at all convinced that they are better at protecting the Wines from breakage. And I’m doubtful about the thermal Protection THAT great.
I ship expensive bottles 2-day and I stick to good shipping weather – it’s worked for me. Two-day air shipping gives packaged more close tracking attention from Fedex or UPS compared to the usual avalanche of ground shipping.
if a wine shop would give me the option not to use Styrofoam I would choose cardboard.
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Flaky styro is out there, but not from my source. There has not been any mention of tiny pieces.
I reuse good quality styro shippers by taping over the bottom of each slot with heavy-duty tape in long strips and go up the sides. When done, the styro is stronger and more reinforced than new. I also reinforce the bottom of the cardboard outer with three to five strips and, if necessary, the vertical seam; not one bottle has broken. I sell better wines, plus fine and rare, so I am very cautious.
Upright cardboard shippers are safer than horizontal ones, especially with heavier bottles. I did have breakage with a horizontal shipper, which was no doubt FedEx gorilla tossing boxes around. The surviving bottles were repacked with wet bottles in plastic bags, further staining the labels. They were placed in a large cubical box, separated by wine soaked and damaged horizontal dividers. The bottles were clunking against each other when the box was brought to the counter.
Fortunately, the shipper covered the loss, forget about FedEx coverage.
I should elaborate that three cities in Tillamook County Oregon accept styrofoam for free. The cities are Manzanita, Tillamook, and Pacific City. No food trays, peanuts, or colored styrofoam.
In Portland, there is only one place, but it charges $10 for every garbage bag filled with styro.
All of this explains my preference for cardboard.
I have never had a broken bottle either way.
Ugh, fourth shipment since the Fall that came in like this, pulp shipper box surrounded by packing peanuts inside another box. Impossible to get to the actual wine without packing peanuts everywhere. What’s the point? If you don’t trust the pulp shippers, just use styrofoam I guess, at least that can be recycled some plaes.
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