Buy a $1,000 book, get a five year old polybag.

[ImageMask]

 

This would the PETE structure.

 

 

The n indicating the number of chains. But the structure is specific.

 

Sorry dude, but that's the formula for PETE. With the n being undefined, the formula isn't any specific structure.

 

Oh, I thought the formula involved a carboxylic acid monomer and an alcohol monomer joining in an ester linkage and hydrolysis. Maybe some heat and catalyst involved.

 

, I just collect funny books. My Ohcem was only 2 semesters and was brutal.

 

You must be a Ochemist. I'll let you explain the process. Respect

 

 

[InvstmntComcSuply]

Peter,

 

I asked this question in another thread. Maybe you can enlighten us:

 

Are Priority Flat Rate envelopes sorted separately from Priority packages?

 

I can see where a comic book in a lightweight box shipping with other 30-50 lb boxes might fare better in a Priority envelope shipping with other 1-3 lb flats.

[silverweb]

Peter,

 

I asked this question in another thread. Maybe you can enlighten us:

 

Are Priority Flat Rate envelopes sorted separately from Priority packages?

 

I can see where a comic book in a lightweight box shipping with other 30-50 lb boxes might fare better in a Priority envelope shipping with other 1-3 lb flats.

 

To me it seems like Priority boxes are subjected to more bruising/bashing from other heavy boxes, while Priority Flats don't get bashed as much except for the corners. When I do ship in a Priority Flat, I have learned to use double cardboard one each side. Below is a Priority box I received a few years ago. The lesson is, for books of any significant value, don't trust the USPS, buy insurance!

 

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

I'm starting to worry about how many Mylar bags are going into landfill.

The things don't degrade

Imagine future generations excavating landfill and trying to decipher the code from one of Harley Yee's old used mylars.

 

Mylar is recyclable. It is the same kind of plastic used in plastic soda bottles and thousands of other commonly encountered applications. Mylar is a trademark name for polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE), which is SPI resin code 1. (The SPI resin code is the number in the triangle on the bottom of the bottle.) Mylar is the easiest plastic to recycle under the current plastic recycling system and is the most commonly recycled plastic.

 

So toss those old mylars in the recycling bin, folks, not in the trash can. (thumbs u

 

Post it's chemical structure......................ez google for you.

 

Remind me again - do I like you or not? I can't figure out whether I am supposed to have been antagonized by your snarky comment.

 

 

The comment was in jest. Hence the The stance of your reply indicates a FAIL.

 

Had I been trying to antagonize you I would have pointed out while Mylar is recyclable it is not biodegradable. So Mr.Beds comment is accurate.

 

As to whether you like me not, rhetorical question?

 

I am loving you, You don't post for like 30 years, then add like 200 more to your count in the last month. I'm glad you're back.

 

 

I'm actually glad Shad's back, too.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Interesting stuff, Roy hit most of the right points.

 

I work for the USPS, and I'm a mail carrier. I can tell you how any mail is likely to be damaged.

All mail now is attempted to be read by machine. If an item can be read by a machine, poof, no human has to ever read it again until it reaches the destination PO. If an article cannot be read by a machine, most of it(some odd PO's are not fully upgraded into the system) is then directed to a place where a barcode is applied to the article. Once again, when a machine can read it, nobody has to look at it for most of it's trip.

Packaging an item poorly causes probably 98% of all damage. Mail is no longer handled by hand and hand placed in slots/bags/containers any more. The exceptions are Registered mail and Express mail. Everything else is mixed at the start, and sorted apart at the final destination.

 

Rant of mine, morons in the PO take in articles and improperly separate them into the wrong groups. They intentionally place letters or flats that are not large enough to be parcels, into the parcel stream. Those will travel as they are first separated, thus slowing down the carrier at the end who has to resort them into the right groups. Example, if you buy pictures online, they are shipped to you in a plain kind of envelope about 5x7" in size. Guess how those come to me... as parcels. They are tossed literally into the parcels, and other parcels tossed on top of them. I wonder what idiots decided that was safer for pictures.

 

Anyway, letters are sorted by machines, basically all of them. Flats are not yet, but most are, and soon all will be sorted by machines. Those flat sorting machines are not good for fragile items. The flats go down a chute and are diverted to side chutes into a tub which they fall into, not neatly. They land in any direction, about half upside down. We call them helicopter flats, they take much longer to pull out and sort. If you place a comic book in a plain type of envelope with no protection, expect a few new dings.

 

Anything that they cannot get to run in the flat sorting machines, those will be tossed into the parcels. Parcels do okay(I believe) until they reach the delivery PO. There they are all sorted to routes, by hand, through the air, into individual hampers. All parcels which can be tossed into hampers, are thus tossed up to 15-20 feet depending on how many hampers(routes) there are.

 

Now, if you can comprehend that, imagine what happens when any parcel is tossed onto another parcel. Parcels can weigh up to 70 pounds. You know what some boxes look like that we ship comics in. Imagine what happens when another box weighing 20+ pounds lands on the side of the typical box like that? Can your packaging methods withstand an impact from a tossed 20lbs. parcel onto its side? Parcels are tossed that way if the clerk can physically do it. The heavy stuff is suppose to be carried around to the hampers, or over to the carrier.

 

The point I'm trying to say is, do not assume that parcels are set down lightly upon each other. Please do not assume that each parcel is hand carried and set on or into the next sorting device. UPS and Fedex etc. use a lot of conveyor belts. They can do that because all they do is parcels. At the USPS they have to deal with any shape or size of mail article, thus they use a lot of cages of steel or aluminum, huge boxes, bags, hampers, tubs or trays. There are a minimum of conveyor belts, the UPS/Fedex uses those for sorting. In the USPS it's all about sorting into types and machine reading them, raw sorting into big cages/boxes etc(likely tossed), and then fine sorting by hand(tossed) at the destination PO. Fine sorting doesn't mean like handling fragile comics, I'm talking about sorting to the route, and then to the address.

 

USPS parcels are all tossed, if they are light enough to be tossed. Package anything like you expect a 50 pound object to land on it with its corner. Regards,

 

Translation:

 

The word "FRAGILE" means nothing to a machine.

 

(thumbs u

[RockMyAmadeus]

Peter,

 

I asked this question in another thread. Maybe you can enlighten us:

 

Are Priority Flat Rate envelopes sorted separately from Priority packages?

 

I can see where a comic book in a lightweight box shipping with other 30-50 lb boxes might fare better in a Priority envelope shipping with other 1-3 lb flats.

 

To me it seems like Priority boxes are subjected to more bruising/bashing from other heavy boxes, while Priority Flats don't get bashed as much except for the corners. When I do ship in a Priority Flat, I have learned to use double cardboard one each side. Below is a Priority box I received a few years ago. The lesson is, for books of any significant value, don't trust the USPS, buy insurance!

 

 

 

Hey, are you near the old NAS?

 

My dad and granddad worked there for a combined total of 65 years....

 

[ImageMask]

Interesting stuff, Roy hit most of the right points.

 

I work for the USPS, and I'm a mail carrier. I can tell you how any mail is likely to be damaged.

All mail now is attempted to be read by machine. If an item can be read by a machine, poof, no human has to ever read it again until it reaches the destination PO. If an article cannot be read by a machine, most of it(some odd PO's are not fully upgraded into the system) is then directed to a place where a barcode is applied to the article. Once again, when a machine can read it, nobody has to look at it for most of it's trip.

Packaging an item poorly causes probably 98% of all damage. Mail is no longer handled by hand and hand placed in slots/bags/containers any more. The exceptions are Registered mail and Express mail. Everything else is mixed at the start, and sorted apart at the final destination.

 

Rant of mine, morons in the PO take in articles and improperly separate them into the wrong groups. They intentionally place letters or flats that are not large enough to be parcels, into the parcel stream. Those will travel as they are first separated, thus slowing down the carrier at the end who has to resort them into the right groups. Example, if you buy pictures online, they are shipped to you in a plain kind of envelope about 5x7" in size. Guess how those come to me... as parcels. They are tossed literally into the parcels, and other parcels tossed on top of them. I wonder what idiots decided that was safer for pictures.

 

Anyway, letters are sorted by machines, basically all of them. Flats are not yet, but most are, and soon all will be sorted by machines. Those flat sorting machines are not good for fragile items. The flats go down a chute and are diverted to side chutes into a tub which they fall into, not neatly. They land in any direction, about half upside down. We call them helicopter flats, they take much longer to pull out and sort. If you place a comic book in a plain type of envelope with no protection, expect a few new dings.

 

Anything that they cannot get to run in the flat sorting machines, those will be tossed into the parcels. Parcels do okay(I believe) until they reach the delivery PO. There they are all sorted to routes, by hand, through the air, into individual hampers. All parcels which can be tossed into hampers, are thus tossed up to 15-20 feet depending on how many hampers(routes) there are.

 

Now, if you can comprehend that, imagine what happens when any parcel is tossed onto another parcel. Parcels can weigh up to 70 pounds. You know what some boxes look like that we ship comics in. Imagine what happens when another box weighing 20+ pounds lands on the side of the typical box like that? Can your packaging methods withstand an impact from a tossed 20lbs. parcel onto its side? Parcels are tossed that way if the clerk can physically do it. The heavy stuff is suppose to be carried around to the hampers, or over to the carrier.

 

The point I'm trying to say is, do not assume that parcels are set down lightly upon each other. Please do not assume that each parcel is hand carried and set on or into the next sorting device. UPS and Fedex etc. use a lot of conveyor belts. They can do that because all they do is parcels. At the USPS they have to deal with any shape or size of mail article, thus they use a lot of cages of steel or aluminum, huge boxes, bags, hampers, tubs or trays. There are a minimum of conveyor belts, the UPS/Fedex uses those for sorting. In the USPS it's all about sorting into types and machine reading them, raw sorting into big cages/boxes etc(likely tossed), and then fine sorting by hand(tossed) at the destination PO. Fine sorting doesn't mean like handling fragile comics, I'm talking about sorting to the route, and then to the address.

 

USPS parcels are all tossed, if they are light enough to be tossed. Package anything like you expect a 50 pound object to land on it with its corner. Regards,

 

Translation:

 

The word "FRAGILE" means nothing to a machine.

 

(thumbs u

 

fragile and rock............... dance you worries away!

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

fragile and rock............... dance you worries away!

 

Down at Fraggle Rock!

[Peter Loves Gwen]

The key from my post everyone should get is that machines are not damaging books in the PO, people are. When machines are used, it's a combination of a conveyor belt or chute path, with scanning devices trying to find and read barcodes. If a proper barcode is identified, then the article will be directed by the machine to a path which doesn't require anyone to read the address etc. It's more efficient to cut out as many of the human beings as possible, so they have eliminated almost all human sorting except for the carrier.

 

Articles that go through the PO are one of three types of mail, letters, flats, or parcels. Don't count registered and Express in that, those all go in bags separately and are the easiest things to steal(ironic?).

 

A flat rate envelope like any envelope or any article, it's determined by a person early in receiving it, whether it travels as a parcel or a flat. That's one of the big problems, an obvious flat object which would be much safer in the flat stream, often those are tossed into the parcels.

 

Watch at any PO at where the front clerks "place" the mail that people give them. You should see them toss or drop them into a large steel cage(or hamper) that's about 4x4 feet and three feet deep. There should be one or several behind a wall just behind the clerks. When those are filled or twice a day, someone will swap those out with empty cages or hampers. All of those articles will be transported to the large sorting facility for that PO. It's in those facilities that everything is split up or organized to begin trying to machine read them.

 

When you see clerks at the counter handling the incoming mail, they are walking right to the receiving cage or hamper to put the mail in. At the other end is where parcels get tossed from a distance. The hampers which all carriers get their parcels from are about 4x3x3 feet in size. Imagine arranging 20-40 of those hampers(how many routes in that area) in a semi-circle("U" shaped). All parcels are brought to a point there where a clerk can stand in the middle and toss them into the hampers. The close hampers are like those where counter clerks place them, no big deal, parcels dropped onto each other from close distance. But the hampers which are 10-15+ feet away from them are different. All parcels which can be tossed that distance are. If they are too heavy, or too big and take up too much space, the clerks should take extra time and walk those either to the carrier or to the hamper.

 

There's no way to be sure that any flat or envelope will be handled as a flat, many many are tossed into the parcels. I think that's a result of the individual clerk or mailhandler. Some of them are lazy or uncaring etc, and purposely sort them poorly. I worked as a casual in the WMF here in 1991, I worked with those people and helped them with that sorting. I asked them why they placed some flats into parcel hampers instead. The answers were not impressive. They do it because they can do it, or they don't care. Now don't take this as judgment of all PO clerks or mailhandlers. That's my observation of just a handful of less than about five employees, 19 years ago. I have been seeing the results of the sorting process since 1991 though, as an actual mail carrier who sees the parcels in the carrier hampers every day.

 

The percentage of mail items in the parcels which should not be in those hampers is huge. I'd say one out of about every eight "parcels" is not a parcel. Carriers sort their mail in two basic groups, parcels and the mail which they sort together neatly in slots. Now I don't count city carriers, they work on the clock and are forced to take most letters separately to the street. When we go through the parcels from our hampers, we pull out the non parcels and sort those into the mail which is easier to handle in the vehicle. All of those flats and letters and flimsy articles that some fool tossed into the parcels, we either sort them properly into the mail, or they get sorted as parcels too because the parcels are too late getting sorted.

 

As an example of how the USPS sees those items I say are not parcels, during mail counts they remove items that don't fit the parcel requirements. There is a definition of a parcel which is used to determine whether we get paid for them as parcels or flats, or letters. During those mail counts, counters place the non parcels into tubs to make it clear we don't get paid as much for them(they are counted as flats or letters). Everything is brought to us during a mail count, and written down by them. We get 30 seconds total for each parcel. We get 6 seconds for each flat, and 2 to just over 3 seconds for each letter. That's total time, to get it, sort it, load it, and deliver it. There is a big difference between a parcel and a flat or letter, and the USPS takes great joy in making us handle them as parcels but only paying us for them as flats/letters. That's one of our pet peeves, and our union is useless to help with that.

 

Do what you can to make sure that what you send is clearly a thin flat with firm edges(the outer container). Those have a good chance of being run as flats, which don't get tossed like parcels. Any other odd shaped stuff or flimsy containers used(big envelopes), assume those all go as parcels, no matter the weight or what you write on it.

 

The placards you put on mail, like the word FRAGILE, that only helps when the mail carrier gets it, he/she will try not to bend or ding or otherwise handle roughly those things. It also makes a huge difference when the carrier is at a mailbox and deciding whether it will fit in the box. Most damage happens during the time before a carrier gets the mail, but a big note on the article does help to keep some things from being "mangled" to get it in the box. I roll pictures when I know that's what they are, if they can go in a box that way. I also have seen lots of comic book subscriptions come through the mail. I had a subscription one time myself in the early 90's, and I will not do that again. When I carried those, I tried to be very gentle with them because they only have a thin paperboard backing. I'm sure they were going to kids on my route, but I know what they may become. I try hard when possible to be very careful with fragile items, but most of that is coming in the parcel hampers. Good luck with your shipping, do pack things like you expect heavy stuff to drop on them.

[lizards2]

So - would you recommend fragile or expensive items be shipped in a priority flat rate envelope?

[Peter Loves Gwen]

So - would you recommend fragile or expensive items be shipped in a priority flat rate envelope?

 

No, I suggest the free Priority Mail boxes. That's what I use, and there are about three similar sizes, not counting the flat rate version. I like to start with the biggest, it's a product # 1095 box. That's the magic size that fits perfectly around one other size similar box. You've likely seen parcels like that, the smaller size slips right into the # 1095 box, with a little packing on each end.

 

Try to fill all of the space in each box, don't leave any dead space. Use good packing material, like peanuts and the small bubble wrap. Other types collapse very easily, test them by squeezing a handful to a smaller size, and see if it grows back to what it was.

 

Last year some fool put a car AC control head unit in a box with shredded paper. Shredded paper crushes to almost nothing compared to the size it is when you have it in hand or in a box. The plastic item was bounced around the inside and busted in a few pieces. The box was enough and there was just a small hole or two from the part inside hitting the box surfaces. The packing material did not provide a barrier between the item and the box. It couldn't take any tossing around. That's another eBay seller I won't buy from. Regards,