The Art of Packaging

Have you ever wondered why we need so much packaging?  It is interesting when you notice that your child’s favorite toy has more packaging for it than does most of the food products that you buy.  For example; a doll has a heavy plastic package that encapsulates 2 large pieces of heavy cardboard with the toy wired to them by 20 different twist ties.  By the time you unpackage the toy, the child is a year older and no longer has any interest in the doll.

Christmas morning was a time when dad had to assemble all the gifts and get them ready for the eminent abuse that awaited them.  Today, the balance of Christmas morning is spent just trying to unpackage the gifts, to free them from the bonds of the packaging elves.  It occurs to me that most of a product cost must be the packaging and the process of making it near impossible to open.  This is especially frustrating to those of us with arthritis who must somehow open a child proof bottle to get to the remedy for severe hand pain.

This brings me to my recent experience with packaging.  I needed a new flashlight, so off I go to one the amazing corporate shopping paradises near my home.  I find the flashlight that I want, take it home, then begin the process of extracting it from bullet proof packaging.  The flashlight is sealed inside of a square plastic shell that is sealed on all four sides. After several failed attempts to cut the seal with household scissors, I must resort to sheet metal snips to free my purchase from its prison.

What is this obsession to package something to the point where it can be buried then exhumed 200 years later in mint condition?  Many of the products packaged in this manner are built to be virtually indestructible without the packaging!  I myself, believe that this is the task of marketing departments who love to frustrate customers.

Then there is the issue of all that plastic that gets introduced into our environment and ends up in our oceans.  That square plastic container that I just opened will float around the planet for 500 years, or it will be consumed by some ocean critter.  This might explain why all fast food fish sandwiches are square, it is the shape they become after consuming the square plastic packaging.

Talk to Ya Later!

The Grump Old Fart Customer @2018 All Rights Reserved