Look at what you throw away each day. Empty drink cans, sweet wrappers, leftover food, paper and bottles...

Much of the waste in your garbage is packaging. The cardboard, paper and plastic containers surrounding a product are designed to make it more attractive, but all this packaging is eventually thrown away.

One approach is to consider whether the amount of packaging being used for a product is really needed. Confectionery and cosmetics packs are some of the most wasteful. The most creative design-work often uses simple materials such as corrugated card and printed paper to achieve subtle and sophisticated packages. They are also simpler and cheaper to produce.

Reducing the amount of material used in surface area and thickness is an obvious approach, particularly when the package will only be used once for a very short time.

Reusing and refilling containers is an obvious way of reducing packaging cost. With a refill pack, one durable container is purchased initially and then thinner, lighter packages are bought as refills.

Reducing the number of separate parts in a package  helps reduce the possibility of them being dropped rather than thrown away. One good example is the drink can ring-pull.

Packaging designers need to graphically remind and prompt users to throw packaging materials away properly.

© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)