Companies are starting to get more into environmental packaging. The latest is Dell. Dell gets just a little greener by adding bamboo in its product packaging portfolio. And they are the first in the PC industry to do it.

It applies to all Dell Inspiron Mini 10 and Mini 10v netbooks shipped from today onward. Bamboo is used as product cushions cradling the Mini within an outer box that is made from 25% post-consumer materials. Starting early next year, Dell hopes to expand their use of bamboo packaging to a wider range of it’s products.

Check out this great innovation in the world of packaging. Shown at the Nepcon world expo in Japan, a company named Sealedair demonstrated the ‘Pack in instance’ packing system. It looks like a perfect way to pack delicate items for shipment and it can be used no matter what product or box size you’re working with.

Just insert the packing material, inject the gel and you have a perfect mold of the object where it rests comfortably. It may just be the future of packing materials. I assume the real trick would be to make it cheap enough to be affordable to use.

We’ve all had our encounters with clamshell packaging, so it’s nice to hear about manufacturers that abandon the practice. Sony did just that this week, even though this video is pretty lame. Sony is just one of several big name companies that have pledged an end to this wasteful, destructive packaging.

As we reported last month, Amazon took a stand of their own. Other companies are getting on board too, like Microsoft and Best Buy. Once they start saving money on packaging, maybe Sony can make a better video, or give their workers a raise, but in reality it will likely go straight into the hands of the guys at the top. Then they can feel all good about themselves when they too ask for a bailout. To help the little guy of course.

This is news to our ears,fingers and teeth. Amazon is questioning the necessity of those rage inducing hard plastic containers that can presumably stand up to bombs and the jaws of life. They’re actually doing something about it. Starting today, consumers who are tired of fighting with this evil packaging can opt for products in Amazon’s “Frustration-Free Packaging,” which offers streamlined packaging that often includes recyclable cardboard.

19 products are currently available in friendly containers from companies like Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend. They have hopes of offering their “entire catalog of products in Frustration-Free Packaging” within a few years. Hopefully others in the gadget world will join in on this.