Photo credit: scrapthispack @ Flickr
Note: Each week we'll be bringing you a roundup of fresh green topics from our friends over at TreeHugger. Enjoy!
Packaging Design At Its Worst
Poor packaging design and ridiculous examples of over-packaging come in all shapes and sizes, but it doesn't get much worse than these individually-wrapped bananas.
Human Shrub Attacks Town
Citizens of Colchester beware! Take to your houses. A creature from the swamps has been filling empty planters and baskets with brightly-coloured marigolds and begonias, last seen wandering the streets carrying a sign saying "Save the Roses."
Your Eco-Wood Might Be Illegal
Thinking of buying sustainably harvested wood from Brazil? Check the label, could be illegal wood passed off as eco-certified.
6 Ways To Defuse Anti-Cyclist Road Rage
If you are a cyclist and the victim of Auto Road Rage, there are a number of things you can do to keep the peace. I like #5, don your best plumage.
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All my bananas are individually wrapped in yellow form-fitting packaging.
Ah, consumer prophylaxis at its finest.... meaning, of course worst.
Human shrub - haven't we seen this before? He's wearing a Ghillie suit, anyway. And Colchester is a garrison town.
Not only is that extraordinarily wasteful, but the banana will go rotten 4x as fast in the packaging, due to the accumulation of ethylene. Doh!
My favourite has always been the plastic wrap on a coconut - the shell is so hard you have to bash it with a hammer, but they have to apply plastic wrap.
Then you realize - the plastic is so the sticker has something to adhere to. Because, you know, I wouldn't recognize a coconut by sight...
Ahhh! Sniper gardener! Everybody down!
you'd think this problem would be an easy fix..less packaging only means less cost and more profit for the packager right!?
is there some source event for this occurrence, like McDonald's having to tell me my coffee is hot because some lady poured it in her lap years ago? was someone sued for improper packaging that caused this overkill?
The source would be when our food supply became largely industrialized, and removed from localism: read Michael Pollan. Fresh, locally-grown and consumed food needn't be all that heavily packaged.
That's MORRISSON'S the UK supermarket.
They are insane
Artists are all over this packaging stuff.
http://www.victoriamimiaga.com/
Here's a small collection of shot of Japan's individually packaged foodstuffs that aren't typically individually packaged elsewhere:
http://www.hellodamage.com/top/?p=1606
It, too, begins with a packaged banana.
@7 Wareagle: The suit was about the temperature of the coffee, not the packaging. An aside in the case was that although there was a "hot" warning on the cup it wasn't large and obvious enough.
Was that Cory on the second page of the cyclist road rage article?
Okay, the banana is just silly. Though I will point out that it probably does not matter that the packaging will make the bananas go bad more quickly, as a single banana will likely not need to be stored for long.
As a person with a compromised immune system, I cannot tell you how happy I was when my school cafeteria began wrapping apples individually. People looking for an apple generally touch many apples before deciding on one. It's anyone's guess whether they have recently washed their hands. I also appreciate individually wrapped candies, which I feel comfortable accepting from classmates.
When I shop I try to buy the smallest portions available. This increases packaging per food item, but means I waste much less food, since I am only feeding myself and cannot eat family-sized portions before they go bad.
Environmentally friendly packaging is nice, but for some of us it isn't always realistic.
Thanks for that informative link w000t. I never knew that Fanta started out as Nazi Coke, and Wikipedia seems to confirm it.
@ #14 ANONYMOUS
Wash the apple.
@Pantograph
From the comments section on the "Japan Sizes Of Food" page:
snopes.com: Fanta and the Nazis
@#16 error404:
Great idea. I'll leave the rest of my food unattended on a cafeteria table while I make a trip to wash an apple in the nearest bathroom sink. Hope they aren't using scented soap in the dispensers.
Anonymous: The solution? Portable sinks. Just add some backpack straps and, boom, you'll be washing portably in no time at all. Maybe paint it in a Spongebob or Hello Kitty theme.