Smaller SIM Packaging

[#1]

As part of giffgaff’s ethos of being environmentally friendly, I feel that the idea to change how we look at our SIM packaging is required. My focus in this idea is the plastic SIM holder users receive to show the activation code, and then house the SIM.

What can be done?

It’s simple, this extra space is not needed at all, and we could shrink the plastic holder by half and still have sufficient space needed for the plastic holder to serve its purpose. Shrinking this would make things different; only one other network orange has done this, as you will see with the image below:

What would this mean for giffgaff?

• Half the amount of waste
• Would make the company more sustainable, and a much greener business
• Would expand on giffgaff’s ethos of being green, and efficient
• Would reduce the weight of SIM packages
• Enable giffgaff to ship more SIMs per envelope
• Overall, the production costs would be far less than producing SIM cases double the size.

If we was to reduce the Size of the SIM package, it would indeed save giffgaff money, I also think that it adds a more unique approach on how things are looked at. Obviously giffgaff are extraordinary, they’re different, so to see this change would most certainly show the idea of this.

Size does matter – And using the smaller SIM cases would overall reduce costs. The only issue as it stands is the number of batches of the original size we have. This isn’t much of a problem, as they’ve already done the damage, giffgaff have paid for this, if the idea was to be implemented, we could see this happen when the old batches have all gone.

Looking at the scale of the issue, more than 2.9 billion SIM cards weighing 11,600 tonnes were shipped to mobile operators across the globe in 2008* – Giffgaff could change this. Orange have already started the process, and have received recognition for doing such thing.

I have gone and got an Orange reduced SIM holder, and taken a photo in comparison to giffgaff's below:

*Statistics taken from: http://newsroom.orange.co.uk

Kudo this idea if you like it, I think this change would be great, and save giffgaff more money.

[#2]

100 Kudos! Wow, thanks for the support everyone.

[#3]

@cinami Other networks provide push-out slits within the SIM, to make a Micro SIM, which is less wasteful and has been suggested.

[#4]

Great idea!

[#5]

If there is 4month order time and a huge backstock why not cut the current sims in half before posting (ok not necessary everytime but useful when people are ordering 3 plus sims at a time to distribute.

[#6]

So, this isn't being implemented in the new SIMs either...

[#7]

Yeah, it's a joke how wasteful they are at the moment.

[#8]

Yes I can imagine we now won't see this in the 2012 batch due to the amount ordered. Which is a big shame as they would look much better.

@turkeyphant - They're scrapping the leaflets apparently, but what I can't understand is that if they're doing this, why are the envelopes staying the same size?

[#9]

Good Idea

[#10]

I do hope they implement this idea soon and isn't being overlooked I mean if orange can cut there sims down by half surely giffgaff can as well?

[#11]

I wonder if the new hybrid micro sim/sim GG sim cards will implement the idea of cutting down the size of the sim card (not the card but the card surrounding it)?