Interested to read all the comments re rubbish bags. Packaging seems to be a bit of a theme.
How come we have to put up with this packaging crap? Does anyone actually want it? Great idea for merchandisers and plastic manufacturers, but not for anyone else. They make all this junk that comes as a by product of whatever it is you purchase (or used to purchase!) and the end user has to dispose of it. And pay local councils handsomely for rubbish removal and landfill. And most of it will hang around for hundreds of years before degrading into a chemical cocktail. There is something wrong with this picture.
Oh yeah, and it takes a lot of energy to make all this stuff that is designed specifically to end up as rubbish.
And we let them get away with it and reward those that continue to over-package by buying their stuff...
3 comments:
I'm with you on the wasted packaging that ends up as rubbish. It really annoys me that my favourite chocolates come wrapped in foil, sitting in a paper cup with a sticker on top, nestling in a plastic tray, inside a plastic box wrapped in cellophane. Needless to say they are not among the foods I am allowing myself to buy anymore. Just got to learn to make chocolate...
Now that I am refusing all take away cups, napkins, tubs etc it also astounds me how little time those
plastic bits are actually in use for. A coffee cup- about 5 minutes. Plastic knife and fork? Maybe ten. Then they are straight into the rubbish bin. Perfectly good, albeit highly wasteful utensils don't even get the use they could.. we use and toss in minutes without a second thought.
On another note, is anybody finding that while compacting is cheaper in many ways, what it uses a bit more of is time? I'm finding that simplifying life and compacting go together.
For example, I have stopped buying overpackaged snack foods for the kids, instead baking scones and muffins more often. They love it, and its fun for them to help, but it does make bedtime a little later for all of us.I need to cut out something else in order to make time do it.
This week I'm experimenting with freezing two weeks worth...
I have worked as a packaging designer, not really what i wanted when i did my design degree but thats the only work around in sydney. i am trying to find a job designing sustainable products but there are none. It sucks.
The problem with packaging is; it works ie. for a small extra cost the manufacturers sales increase a lot. sooo, we as consumers need to address this by buying stuff with recycled paper packaging, not plastic. the manufacturers will take note if enough of us do it, and they will have to follow suit.
WE AS CONSUMERS HAVE THE POWER!! Tell your friends and relo's this...
oh yeah a., i have definitely noticed how much longer everything takes, from shopping to cooking to cleaning.
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