Packaging!

So anyway. Today's issue is packaging:

At the bottom of this letter is another letter that I am mailing to Fisher Price. If you feel the same way, add your own deets to it and send it too. Or write your own. I know that I've talked to a few people who feel the same way. Also, here are some websites that might help in learning about the issue.

This one's for kids, but also fun for us:
www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/info/pubs/mountain/e_mount10.html

• Packaging

• Approximately 35% of municipal solid waste is packaging
• In the U.S., 5.6% of all steel, 50% of all paper, 65-70% of all glass, 25-30% of all aluminium, and 23.5% of all plastics produced are used for packaging.
• $1 out of every $10 spent on food goes into packaging.
By the age of 6 months, the average Canadian has consumed the same amount of resources as the average person in the developing world consumes in a lifetime.

-Recycling Council of Ontario

these facts and others at:
www.wrwcanada.com/download_facts.htm

• Germany passed laws that force manufacturers to deal with the waste their packaging creates ten years ago. The manufacturers have to pay for companies to sort waste and deliver it for recycling. The idea has spread through Europe and Japan. But in North America, corporations are resisting.

This from:
www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/home/overpackaging/index.html

Now, perhaps, we should hear from the nays (the Packaging Association of Canada):

• That's right! A food safety standard for packages that will be in contact with food and beverage products... written BY food processors and package converters FOR package converters. The standard will include several sections:

Generic Prerequisites (complete)
Flexible Plastic Packaging (complete)
Rigid Plastic Packaging (complete)
Paper Packaging (complete)
Metal Packaging (to come)
Glass Packaging (to come)
Composite Packaging (to come)

This from:
www.pac.ca/services/haccphome.html

And from the same folks (the Packaging Association of Canada), how they are dealing with it (some interesting reading):

SOURCE REDUCTION

• Canadians have been pushing the edge of the technological envelope to maximize thin-walling, down-gauging, light-weighting, elimination and other reduction activities, while maintaining package and product integrity, consumer safety and meeting other needs.

• In 1996, 4.89 million tonnes of new packaging was used, as compared to 6.18 million tonnes in 1988 – a drop of 21 per cent through source reduction despite an 11 per cent population increase.

www.pac.ca/information/how.html



As promised, a letter to Fisher Price to complain about the overpackaging of their baby items. Use this as a template for your own letter and send it to your favourite overpackaging company. Or write an original one. Squeaky wheels get the grease! :



To whom it may concern,


Please be advised that I will do my utmost to avoid your products in the future. Why? Packaging! My wife and I were given a gift of your baby monitor and I had to wrestle through a thick layer of cardboard, a thick layer of plastic sheeting, and then another layer of molded plastic in order to get to it! This is unacceptable. I see no practical value in this excessive packaging.

We - like many parents these days - are very concerned about the effect we have on the earth. All this excess packaging in the name of marketing creates a significant amount of plastic and cardboard. This stuff either fills our waste sites, gets incinerated and pollutes the air, or uses valuable energy to recycle. The unrecyclable plastic is burdensome waste already. As for the cardboard, anyplace that actually recycles cardboard requires a significant amount energy to do so, most likely increasing greenhouse gas output. The solution is to reduce the amount produced in the first place. This way, energy and waste can be saved in two places: the production of and the disposal of any necessary packaging.

Please reduce your packaging! Until such time as this is addressed, I will buy patronize an alternative company. One that takes “green parents”’ concerns seriously.

Thank you for your time.

Yours sincerely,


(and here's Fisher Price's info:

Fisher-Price products, including Baby Gear, Infant Toys and Car Seats:
In the US and Canada: 800-432-5437

Mattel Canada Inc.
Mississauga, ON L5R3W2

Unfortunately I couldn't find an email address, so it has to be snail mail.)