Our insatiable appetite for online shopping has resulted in an explosion in the number of delivery vans on the road. The 38 per cent increase in the number of vans on British roads since 2000 – a growth faster than car traffic on all types of road – suggests we need to find a more efficient way of distributing goods. However, in a dystopian future no less frightening than road gridlock, an antidote to the proliferation of white vans may arrive in a swarm of biodegradable cardboard delivery gliders.
Amazon, a significant contributor to delivery van traffic themselves, aims to escape congestion entirely with a range of delivery drones.
Perhaps having sought inspiration from Amazon’s prolific use of cardboard in its packaging, researchers working on behalf of the American army have developed small cardboard gliders designed to deliver payloads weighing up to 1 kg. Dropped in their hundreds from cargo planes, the cardboard gliders can travel up to 55 miles before circling and making a precise landing.
The cardboard body is biodegradable and the electronics are designed to self-destruct after use. The gliders are intended to deliver medicines to isolated areas, but there may be one landing at your doorstep sooner than you think.
Cardboard concepts
Cardboard has become a byword for disposability, but it is a strong, versatile and surprisingly durable material in a wide range of applications. It’s use in transport is imaginative and increasingly common. For example, the Packtasche is a set of panniers made from cardboard designed to be offered by supermarkets to their cycling customers.
German designers Philipp Moherndl and Matthias Lechner claim the panniers can safely carry 12 kg of shopping and can be used numerous times before they are recycled.
Cardboard bicycles
It matters not how strong your lock or how comprehensive a cycle insurance policy you have chosen, the threat of theft persists because criminals find it quick, easy and lucrative to sell stolen bikes.
Israeli entrepreneur Izhar Gafni has applied lateral thinking and his engineering expertise to the problem and developed a cardboard bicycle made that is so cheap to buy it has little re-sale value for thieves. The cardboard bicycle defies all preconceptions; it is strong, waterproof, humidity-resistant and most crucially, at £6, cheap to build.
Royal College of Art postgraduate Anirudha Surabhi developed the lightweight and waterproof Kranium cardboard cycle helmet following a tumble from his bike. The cardboard cycle helmet which is claimed to be stronger and more durable than those of conventional polystyrene construction.
The design boasts a transparent shell that reveals the honeycomb cardboard structure beneath. Whether or not you are a fan of protective headgear, there’s no denying this is an interesting looking cycle helmet.
Ethical insurance
The ETA has been voted the most ethical insurance company in Britain by the Good Shopping Guide.
Beating household-name insurance companies such as John Lewis and the Co-op, the ETA earned an ethical company index score of 89.
The ETA was established in 1990 as an ethical provider of green, reliable travel services.
Twenty six years on, we continue to offer cycle insurance, travel insurance and breakdown cover while putting concern for the environment at the heart of all we do.
Tim Earl
Those cardboard panniers are a minor improvement, but do not address the cause, which is people’s failure to expend the tiniest amount of forethought or energy to avoid waste.
All they need to do is take bags with them to bring their shopping home in. The reason they don’t is that it is too easy to use the ones provided by the supermarkets. 5p is a piffling sum to almost everybody, and will just be paid (or evaded) by the type of people who dump plastic bags rather than recycling (or re-using) them.
What you should be campaigning for is a ban on these bags altogether, and a rise in price of the bags-for-life. In the meantime a ban on advertising on the bags might also influence the supermarket’s views on the issue.