December 2010
Flat Pack DIY Shoes from Unulife
From the UnuLife website:
These shoes are made from a single sheet of recycled leather and use neither glue nor stitching. They come flat-packed for self-assembly, ready to be folded together by hand. The shoes and all the packaging are both recycled and recyclable. Either as summer ‘scuff-arounds’ or household slippers, indoors or out, they’re comfortable and surprisingly durable.
Flat Pack DIY Shoes from Unulife
From the UnuLife website:
These shoes are made from a single sheet of recycled leather and use neither glue nor stitching. They come flat-packed for self-assembly, ready to be folded together by hand. The shoes and all the packaging are both recycled and recyclable. Either as summer ‘scuff-arounds’ or household slippers, indoors or out, they’re comfortable and surprisingly durable.
Amazon patents procedure to let recipients avoid undesirable gifts -- Washington Post →
washingtonpost.com
Mike Rosenwald reports that Amazon has quietly patented a process that intercepts gifts you don’t want and allows you to receive items you actually do want:
Amazon’s innovation, not ready for this Christmas season, includes an option to “Convert all gifts from Aunt Mildred,” the patent says. “For example, the user may specify such a rule because the user believes that this potential sender has different tastes than the user.” In other words, the consumer could keep an online list of lousy gift-givers whose choices would be vetted before anything ships.
Such a gift-conversion system would reduce shipping and packaging waste, benefiting both consumers and e-retailers, who rang up some $28 billion in gift purchases this holiday season. Up to 30 percent of gifts purchased online are returned.
Carl Howe, a Yankee Group consumer technology analyst, says, “If you can get the right gift to a person the first time, this could be a huge cost-saving invention. From a retailer’s perspective, this is like gold.”
See also earlier Unconsumption posts about trading and bartering as ways to help offset inefficient gift-giving.
