Packaged Goods

by Didi LeMay

For Christmas I got a lot of wonderful gifts from wonderful friends and family.

All the gifts were wrapped in paper or had fancy bows. There was no plastic wrap with the exception of a pedometer and a gift for my cat. Both came in a hard plastic packages.

When it was time to open the package of toy mice, things went awry.  It turned out to be quite a tricky job. The packaging was made of moulded plastic and, despite my best efforts, I could not find a way to open it without cutting into it.

I took out a pair of scissors and cut through it. It was quite difficult and took a while to do, and afterwards I had little red marks on my fingers from the pressure needed to cut through the material. I wondered why it needed to be packaged like this at all. Could they not have priced the toy mice individually and put them into a paper bag? It would probably have been less expensive and there would have been a lot less plastic waste.

I was very excited to open the packaging of the pedometer and use it to see how many steps I take in a day. Before I could clip it to my waistband though, I needed to open the plastic moulded packaging. Again, I had to resort to scissors. The plastic packaging was so inflexible, it was almost impossible to cut. But as I finally cut into it, the instruction booklet that was wrapped tightly in with it got cut as well; I had to tape it back together to read it.

I started thinking about all the other packaging I had trouble with. Makeup, for example, can be a struggle. The last time I bought mascara, I pulled hard and when the packaging tore open, the mascara flew through the air and promptly landed in one of the planters in my living room.

A few months ago I needed a new pair of scissors. When I went to buy them, I could not find a pair that was not wrapped in an excessive amount of plastic packaging. The irony of the packaging did not escape me: I needed to borrow a pair of scissors from my neighbour to get my pair of scissors out of their plastic packaging!

The  experiences with plastic wrapping and packaging has made me  more determined than ever to find things not made of, wrapped, or packaged in plastic; not only for environmental reasons, but for my comfort as well. I might even say that it is my New Year’s Resolution.

DiDi LeMay is a children’s book author. She has written “A Winter Solstice Celebration” because of her concerns for nature and the ecosystem and wants to share her concerns with the children. DiDi hopes to inspire the children to take care of the environment. You can visit DiDi’s web-site at www.didilemay.com

Image courtesy of Microsoft Office.