I recently purchased a new iPad. The device was what I expected – a small improvement on the previous (very good) model. What really struck me was the box it came in. It was beautiful!
A team of exceptionally talented people put their creative energy into that box. The way it looked, opened (#unboxing), protected the iPad, held everything so there were no rattles. The materials were top notch and obviously expensive.
It was such a nice thing I kept it for a few days just to look at it. Then I threw it in the recycling.
According to this paper, packaging accounting for 36% of municipal solid waste. It uses up 40% of virgin plastics and 50% of paper in Europe. Yet, with a few tweaks to the design, that Apple box I threw away could have been used many times.
Apple packaging is exceptional, but they are hardly alone in this. All their competitors ship products in beautiful, single use boxes. And let’s not overlook the ubiquitous Amazon cardboard box. Sometime the box is better engineered than the product it contains. Why are we throwing them all away?
There are industries that get it right. I was talking to a Belgian brewing company recently and they told me they were still using beer bottle crates that were made in 1960s. They see beer crates as valuable assets, not waste. Why can’t we do that more?
Sensize Privacy Policy: To protect the confidentiality of your device data, Sensize applications and websites may require you to log in.Sensize may collect usage data about the services you access in order to help us diagnose problems and improve the service. Any information we collect in this manner is used strictly within Sensize and is not shared externally.We do not use tracking or marketing cookies or any similar technology.