Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Packaging

Look this can be a franchise right? I read somewhere this last weekend about anti-packaging man. He does exist. He was seen outside Comet taking a TV out of a cardboard box and putting the TV in the car and the box back at Customer Services. He was seen at a Tescos laboriously taking every single After 8 out of its individual sachet before leaving the check-out. He was seen at IKEA being beaten behind the dustbins by a two metre Scandinavian security guard called Lars. Well OK the last one was a lie but watch where you start this.

Don't go mad. But perhaps once a week, or once a month, take the time to remove really excessive and unnecessary packaging at the point of sale and give it back.

Cardboard and plastic wrap. We ain't gonna take it any more.

4 comments:

Chris said...

I ordered a Belkin Uninteruptable Power Supply (UPS) online the other week. It arrived in an alarmingly large sized box. I opened this box and inside was some polystyrene holding in... wait for it... another box. Inside this box was more polystyrene holding the UPS securely in place.

It was not clear why two layers was necessary.

Dave Walker said...

Yes but then what about the right of warehouse operatives to drop our merchandise from a great height? Nobody thinks of the warehouse operatives in these situations.

Steve Tilley said...

Ah yes. The middle man. Two things:

1. Warehousing could be done in renewable containers which are given back after sale.

2. Some people may have to suffer in my hurry to change the world.

3. I can't count.

4. Recycling probably uses more energy than cycling right now. Only by doing it will we persuade the people who can decide, to invest more in processes that make it cheaper.

Anonymous said...

Ah, but what does Mrs. T, working in the retail business as she does, think of this? I don't know what good it does to throw the packaging back at the sales assistant - we don't put it on and we may well be just as annoyed at the sheer amount of bubble wrap and/or polystyrene bits that get everywhere and/or cardboard boxes and/or plastic bags that products come wrapped in, that we have to unpack before it even reaches the shelves.
On the other hand, there seems to be quite an imbalance if pretty indestructible stone objects come wrapped in three layers but glass vases travel almost exclusively in a cardboard box...