Wasteful wrapping

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32589, 24 April 1971, Page 16

Wasteful wrapping

John Dryden and Benjamin Franklin found it necessary to lament in verse the quantity of waste paper cast off by bad poets; today they would surely find much wider targets. “Next time you “buy a shirt enclosed in a plastic coffin, draped “round a large piece of cardboard, decorated with “ plastic cuff links, and anchored with a heap of pins, “ unpack it in the shop ”, advised a chemical engineer, Mr C. B. Martin, in an address on pollution this week. He will surely find ready support from those who have grappled with the difficulties, and even dangers, of separating a shirt from its cocoon, and who have then attempted to dispose of the accumulated rubbish.

Nor should the process of thrusting unnecessary packaging back on the shopkeeper, and, through him, on the manufacturer who devised it, stop at shirts. Unnecessary wrappings can be found on many lines of clothing, including socks, ties, and underclothes. Cosmetics, some foodstuffs, and many novelty lines of sweets and drinks also come in containers which do little except add to the growing mountain of domestic rubbish, some of it virtually indestructible, which the community must dispose of.

The rise of self-service shopping is partly to blame for the elaborate containers used to display products as humble as needles and razor blades. Without necessarily insisting that eggs be removed from the clumsy but uncrushable cardboard packs and transferred to paper bags, opportunities to reeducate retailers by shedding wasted wrappings on their counters will arise on many a shopping expedition. The flood of used bottles, jars, and plastic dispensers would soon stop if shoppers took empty containers and refilled them with detergent, vinegar, and sauce from the grocer’s shelf. Putting new toothpaste into old tubes might be beyond the ingenuity of some; getting new beer into old flagons is an art that many have learnt The technique is worth extending.