Jane Bickerstaffe: Packaging reduction goes out of the window at Christmas

It always strikes me as ironic that all year we as an industry are berated for putting a few grams of packaging around goods to protect them, and then at Christmas all those complainers’ high principles go out of the window.

Not only do people add still more packaging, wrapping paper and ribbon around their purchases but the things they buy are often truly excessive.

There’s a veritable orgy of spending at Christmas most years, and I predict this year, economic problems notwithstanding, will be just the same. How can consumers spend hundreds of pounds on one small child, but complain about the small expenditure on packaging of everyday goods?

Maybe I am being unfair, and they are two different sets of consumers. Do the people who want to rip all the packaging off their shopping at the supermarket till only give their children modest, home-made gifts, wrapped in old shirts or newspaper?

Perhaps the people who spend £300 on an electronic game for little Freddie are completely content with the way their weekday shopping is wrapped. In which case, I wish they’d speak up!

Join the debate – log on and tell us your thoughts on Jane’s article in the space below.

If you would like to write a Soap Box Blog, we’d love to hear from you. Just email packagingnews.editorial@haymarket.com

Popular Articles