Is it just me or do you also find yourself despising all the wrappings and trappings consumers have to rip/tear/cut/snap/peel through before getting to the product purchased? I can't stand wrappings, even from a just personal point of view. I don't have sharp fingernails you see, never have, and probably never will so from when I was a wee nipper I have never been able to get into sweets, ice lollies and new toys and have ended up (impatient as I am) tearing my way into what's MINE like a maniac. Scissors are never at hand at these frenzied points.
Today I bought a couple of cheap stocking fillers for my son and decided that I’m going to save him from my pet hate, so I took all the wrappings off of his pressies before, hear ye and seek the irony, rewrapping them in Christmas wrapping paper. When I was done I had to snigger at myself as I had probably succeeded in rewrapping the presents just as inaccessibly as they had been initially, only difference being the transparency levels.
But seriously, what with all the focus suddenly on (I say suddenly because even as recently as last year this time no one had more than vaguely heard of) greening ourselves to save our world from ourselves, I moot that we start with simple things like petitioning producers to rethink packaging. Let’s take wrapping paper for example. The wrapping paper I used today was plastic, but surely a bio degradable paper substitute should be made available and in fact replace the plastic version for the same price? As the purpose of wrapping paper is to hide the content beneath some simple pattern, recycled paper, even thrice recycled paper would be ideal. Am I being stoopid or is maybe too simple an idea to take the market by storm?
When I did my overseas-stint after studying, Germany was just introducing the green dot (a Quality assured mark that the packaging was bio degradable) and everybody lovingly rinsed out their yogurt tubs before disposing of them in a special container, separate from organic, clear and coloured glass. I don’t think the whole system was totally fool proof, but considering that this was back in 1992, I think it was pretty impressive. More impressive at least than my ability to follow the complex system of “Entsorgen”, which was a new fancy environmentally correct word for “throw away”. Hey, I think I just came up with a new term soon to be used by all non-lisping South Africans who have such ample practice with “politically correct” : “environmentally correct”.
I wrap my case for today, erh, rest my case.
No comments:
Post a Comment