Harmful packaging – who needs it?

As I approach 50, it’s a question of what’s winning – the tinnitus, arthritis or sentimentality. On days like today, I’m going for the safe middle ground – I’m finding it increasingly difficult to open things – tins of beans, bank accounts, other people’s conviviality. On the packaging front, I’m wondering whether I can find anyone to agree with me. Is it just me, or, after years of recognising packaging for the unnecessary summer overcoat it mostly is, is there a return to packaging for packaging’s sake? Yesterday, I read an article about Unilever launching a luxury version of its Magnum chocice on a stick. It will come in a cardboard box. Yes, that’s right. Apparently, the brand is trying to offer customers an ‘affordable bite of luxury’. And the only way to distinguish it from rivals (or, indeed, its own existing Magnum in a packet), is to stick it in a box. Now, instead of the three hands you will need to open it on the street, you will need four. This is the kind of packaging I don’t need. And neither does the world. This morning I spent ten minutes trying to break into my new Oral B Advance Power 900 electric toothbrush. Like a tramp standing outside McDonalds, I could see what I wanted through the beautiful, clear, indestructible plastic exterior. But my teeth had dropped out through neglect before I could hold the gleaming product in hands that were shredded from grappling with impossibly jagged plastic edges. Electric toothbrush? More like samurai sword. Another fine mess that unnecessary packaging has got me in. My view - when it has to exist, packaging should do no harm? Who agrees?



Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/