This is an interesting article about excess packaging of entertainment and electric goods. Having been through a couple of birthdays already, it seems that the idea of heavy-duty plastic ties to hold toys in their boxes is here to stay.
Wired points out that it's there to stop theft, but I thought that's what the door scanners were for, or the plain-clothes store detectives, or the RFID tags.
The real point, though, is that manufactures deem it acceptable to package up their goods in cardboard, clear plastic and plastic ties. In some cases I've seen those plastic ties actually screwed into the packaging. Of course, the only way for consumers to send a message to manufacturers is to stop buying them, but shop big companies be that deaf to their customers?
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I tend to re-use wrapping because I'm loathe to throw it away but it's often frowned upon by other people as being impolite or "cheap".
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I used to trade CDs with people in America and all over Europe and we always used to re-use wrapping and packaging. It was almost expected that you'd send a CD on with packaging good enough to be used three or four times more.
The same goes, I think, for buying stuff on eBay or Etsy. When it's down to individuals, people tend to reuse stuff. When it's down to big companies, especially the big online retailers, you get bulky cardboard boxes, plastic wrapping and all that nonsense.
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Yeah, that's the tricky thing about this whole business - recycling things. As though extravagance and wastefulness is the Good thing to do... Hmm.
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