August 7 – Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day

Posted on August 7, 2016

Of course, manufacturers don't want people to be able to easily steal their products right out of the boxes or other packaging and stroll right out of the store. Naturally, manufacturers want the people who want their products to actually PAY FOR those products!

But in an effort to beat the possible thieves, some companies use way too much packaging, or packaging that is way too hard to open.

If the customer has taken your product home and spent 10 minutes trying to open it, has used multiple tools, has broken one or more fingernail and maybe even a pair of scissors...

Well, then, you've gone too far. Scale back the protectiveness of your packaging!

Medical professionals have to deal with thousands of patients in E.R.s with injuries from opening difficult packaging (6,000 in the U.S. alone in the year 2004). The term “wrap rage” has been coined to name the frustration created by overzealous packaging.  Consumer Reports magazine awards an Oyster Award to products with hardest-to-open packaging.

Also, over-packaging uses up too many of the Earth's precious resources and makes unnecessary trash that often finds its way into already over-burdened landfills.

Today is the day to sit down and fire off letters, phone calls, or emails to companies that use too much or too difficult packaging. Today is the day for “Feedback R Us”!
  • Here is a website about how to open rigid “clamshell” packaging. 

  • And here are some possible candidates for an Oyster Award, or for a Particularly Preposterous Award:


Don't you hate it when the thing you are trying to get out
of impossible packaging is extremely breakable and, to
boot, considered "household hazardous waste"?
 
Don't you hate it when kids are given presents in
impossible-to-open packaging?

And when the thing inside could be easily cut by whatever
sharp tool you have to use to cut open the packaging?
Luckily, some kids' toys are a simple matter
of flipping the cardboard over and snipping
three trillion plastic and wire and string holders.

Of course, you end up with an entire pile of
packaging to dispose of...

Don't you hate it when produce is swaddled in
cardboard AND plastic packaging?

Don't you hate it when the scissors you buy
to open particularly preposterous packaging
are, themselves, impossible to get to without
scissors?

My final thought on Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day is that the talented and clever Dar Williams teaches us:





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