My bi-weekly shipments of coffee from Lancaster PA's Passenger usually come in a plain cardboard box. You know, the brown kind that you can fold up and put in the recycling bin.

But my most recent shipment came in an oddly sturdy black box that was made of this corrugated plastic-y cardboard material. (OK, I just did some research, and found that the material is corrugated polypropylene sheets.)
‍

Once open, the box introduced itself as Boox, a reusable box company. If I sent back the box to Boox, they'd reuse the box and I'd get a discount code from Passenger.

I like trying new things so I took them up on it. I flattened the box and slapped the prepaid shipping label on the front. Then I went to the blue USPS drop box near my apartment and crammed it in past the little steel anti-theft teeth they started putting in those blue boxes recently. It barely made it in, so who knows if I damaged it beyond reusable-ness. Hopefully it's on its way to California.

Which brings me to the true sustainability of this. On the Boox site, they say:

Boox reduces your environmental impact by 75% compared to single-use packaging. It's science, people!  👩🔬

Consumers (esp. Millennials) are choosing brands based on environmental impact. Boox helps your brand meet its goals and stand out from the crowd.

Which sure, but I can't tell if this take into account the environmental impact of me shipping the box back to them from Brooklyn to California. Maybe that's not a big environmental hit, but it seems kind of silly to be sending a fairly small box all that way.

See also:

• This interview with Boox founder
  ‍
• Article in the wapo about this
  ‍
• Other posts about coffee on this blog.

‍

Image taken from their site.

1: Are Uber and Lyft drivers being exploited?

How much do Uber and Lyft drivers really earn, after expenses? Are they getting a raw deal by being classified as 'independent contractors' instead of employees? I explore the debate over these questions with three guests: Louis Hyman (Cornell), Veena Dubal (UC Hastings College of the Law), and Harry Campbell (The Rideshare Guy).

Listen here

‍

2: Tyler Cowen on the pandemic, revisited

Blogger, author, podcaster, economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University discusses the lessons learned from the pandemic with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Appearing roughly one year after his first conversation on the pandemic, Cowen revisits the predictions he made then and what he has learned for the next time.

Listen here

this song is so good

from the new album, bodies of water. listen on apple music or bandcamp or spotify

pic taken from their instagram

It's called Tythe and it's really easy to sign up and choose the kind of efforts you want to support for $8/mo. I can't say it any better than their website headline:

Note that the service works on iPhones made after 2014, too.

link one

Why Does the Pandemic Seem to Be Hitting Some Countries Harder Than Others? {new yorker}

"The usual trend of death from infectious diseases—malaria, typhoid, diphtheria, H.I.V.—follows a dismal pattern. Lower-income countries are hardest hit, with high-income countries the least affected. But if you look at the pattern of covid-19 deaths reported per capita—deaths, not infections—Belgium, Italy, Spain, the United States, and the United Kingdom are among the worst off.

"The reported death rate in India, which has 1.3 billion people and a rickety, ad-hoc public-health infrastructure, is roughly a tenth of what it is in the United States. In Nigeria, with a population of some two hundred million, the reported death rate is less than a hundredth of the U.S. rate. Rich countries, with sophisticated health-care systems, seem to have suffered the worst ravages of the infection. Death rates in poorer countries—particularly in South Asia and large swaths of sub-Saharan Africa—appear curiously low. (South Africa, which accounts for most of sub-Saharan Africa’s reported covid-19 deaths, is an important exception.)"

link two

Who cares about the Ivy League? {noah smith}

"But on a more fundamental level, how much does any of this really matter? How central are the Ivies and other elite private schools to our educational system in the U.S.? And how much would it change our country if they changed their admissions policies?

"My answer: Not very."