Worst culprit I’ve seen of wasteful packaging is printer ink. I buy canon ink and they sell a 2 pack of in in a box that would fit 20. Box is something like 8x4x4". Cartridge is maybe 3x2x0.5".
Even worse is they used to have some Eco green bs label on the box. Made me want to punch someone every time I opened a box.
I always wondered why not just make packages small but awkward. Like a USB package that is same width and thickness of the USB key but 4’ long. Difficult to walk with that down your pants but probably less space in shipping.
Theft prevention over consumer friendly packaging drives me crazy. I often want to see the box better or take a look at the instructions, checkout the actual product finish, etc. within reason of course, open boxes I know are a pain for the retailer, but some things need to be felt. On that topic, I never understood why most cell phone shops either have a plastic dummy or lock it yo a giant metal cage so you have no way to see how thin it is or how it feels in the hand. I’d be surprised if apple’s consumer friendly approach to shopping interaction wasn’t a big contributor to their growth while all others used fake boxes.
R