 |
| Photo by Tktktk (via Wikimedia Commons) |
by Peggy Robin
My topic today, Hard-to-Open Packaging, falls under the
category of First World Problems (1), but there's really no good reason why we
should sneer at First World Problems. We should feel grateful we have them…and
then try to solve them. If the First World economy works as the champions of
the free market say it should, then the "invisible hand" of the
marketplace should lead manufacturers to the realization that hard-to-open
packaging is bad for business. Make it easier for your customers to get to your
product and they will use it more and then buy even more of it. I'm not sure
why it's taking so long for them to wake up to this useful truth. Instead,
makers of so many products seem intent on frustrating their customers' efforts
to get to the very thing they have bought.
Case in Point #1: The Infamous Clamshell. Much has been written about it and why we
should hate and avoid the clamshell (2). Most of us have experienced the
frustration and even "wrap rage" (3) engendered when we try to break
into the stubborn and all-but-impervious clamshell packaging. One determined
reader wrote to tell me that she always keeps an X-Acto knife at the ready to
extract items that come sealed in clamshells. Personally, I favor serrated-edge
industrial shears, which, when not employed to scissor open a clamshell, are
also well-suited for cutting carpets, linoleum, and roofing materials. Whatever
you use to slice through the hard, molded forms of plastic to release the
product you have purchased for some purpose, you will next encounter the problem
of the razor-like sharpness of the edges left exposed by the cuts you've made,
any one of which can, with one small mis-timed movement, come into contact with
your vulnerable flesh and veins, and end
up sending you to the nearest emergency room. It happens all the time
(4).
Case #2: The teeny-tiny bottle of eye-drops with its cap
safety-sealed in a perforated plastic coat. The cap is so tiny that you can't
take an X-Acto knife or even a small scissors to it. Yet the plastic is so
tough that you can't peel it off along its almost-invisible perforations with
your fingernails alone. Making the situation worse is the fact that you are
half-blind because of the eye infection that has caused you to need the
prescription eye drops in the first place. You probably can't even see the
perforations that are meant to allow you to slit the plastic open on one side
of the bottlecap. (Thanks to Laurie, who wrote to me about this particular
packaging nightmare.)
Case #3: The cereal box that is easy to open --too easy--
with notched flaps that rip apart as soon as you try to separate them, leaving
the box impossible to reclose as it was designed to be closed. This is a
relatively new phenomenon. I used to be very good at opening cereal boxes
carefully and neatly, preserving the cardboard tabs at the top, so that I can
insert the "male" tab into the "female" slot to reclose the
box properly. Lately, I have noticed that the boxes always tear. At first I
thought I was doing something wrong. I must have lost my technique, I thought
to myself, or maybe I'm just not paying attention as I pull the flaps apart on
a new box. Then another similarly package-obsessed friend sent me an article
that unpacked the mystery of the ripping box tops. It's *not* me. I'm not to
blame. It's the packaging industry that has tried to put one over on all of us.
They've gone and changed the boxtop design to make it harder to open cereal box
without tearing the cardboard (5). Why would they do this? To save a few
pennies per box. The flimsier, easier to tear notched boxtop design is slightly
cheaper to produce than the more structurally-sound tab-and-slot design. The
cereal box makers thought no one would notice, or if anyone did, they wouldn't
care.
Well, I care. I care about all these things. Even though
they are quintessentially First World Problems. But then we live in the First
World, don't we? And we all want life to improve, in small ways as well as big
ways. So if we can open a clamshell package without slashing a vein, or we can
manage to uncap the eye drops without calling on the help of a better-sighted
friend, or we can get to the cereal inside the cereal box without ripping the
closing flaps, we'll all have more time to focus on the weightier woes of the
world. I know I will.
---
Notes:
(1) If you're not up-to-date on the First World Problems
meme, go here: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/first-world-problems.
(2) Here are two fairly typical reports on what's wrong
with clamshells: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/sony-microsoft-clamshell-packaging,news-2966.html
and http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/plastic-clamshell-packaging-is-the-worst/257936/
.
(3) "Wrap rage" defined here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrap_rage
(4) 2009 report of 6000 emergency room visits due to clamshell
packaging injuries: http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/thousands-injured-by-adiabolicala-packaging.html
(5) One Man Focus Group reports on cereal box top designs
that rip: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113319/cereal-box-design-new-closure
-----------------------
Still Life With Robin is published on the Cleveland Park
Listserv, www.cleveland-park.com,
and All Life Is Local on Saturdays.
No comments:
Post a Comment