Politically Packaged Packaging

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I know I promised my trends piece this week, but I just read an article about polar bears and how they may be placed on the endangered species list. Do you know that there are more polar bears now than there were 20 years ago? You wouldn't know it if you listened to the news. According to the media, polar bears are on the brink of extinction. That premise got me thinking about political spin and how it relates to what happens in the packaging industry. How packaging initiatives with the right spin can become "political" issues.

"Global warming" is a hot ticket right now. Anything relative to the topic moves to the top of the media list. That's where the polar bears come into play. Their supposed loss of habitat is due to global warming; ergo: we need to protect them. If you take a cause or issue and make it politically correct and then give it enough media play, it becomes a mandate. Just look at Wal-Mart and its new-found green initiatives.

You may not be aware that consumers are on their third wave of environmental awareness. The last two waves died out once the reality set in that it cost the consumer more to be "green." In fact, now the hue and cry is "what's it going to cost?" There is a point of diminishing return. Consumers are willing to pay for "saving the environment," the question is just how much.

Additionally, there have been numerous recent articles about forcing manufacturers to use less packaging. The media purports protests on packaging at grocery stores and the like. Too much packaging they say. Well, where would they be without it? Squashed, broken, inedible or whatever. Ever see the IT commercial for EBay? Well, packaging is IT. You can't have a product without a package and IT is everywhere.

And another new buzz phrase is "polluter pays." And just who might that be? Packaging anything is a complex equation. Just where does the buck stop? Consumers want more convenience because of their busy lifestyles, yet when products demand more packaging to make it happen consumers are frenzied about excess packaging.

Every week there is something in the news about their green initiative forcing companies to scramble to meet proposed deadlines. Although in this case, there is as much negative publicity as positive. Additionally, there are those that intimate that this green position on environmental responsibility is a way to counteract all negative publicity swirling around Wal-Mart.

It's sort of like the current frenzy over "green" packaging. "Green is good." That's the current buzz phrase that has all the packaging manufacturers and consumer goods companies all a titter. Eco-friendly, bio resins, bio plastics, environmental sustainability, and green packaging are all "trendy" media friendly words. After all, packaging is the root cause of global warming or so they would have you believe. So how can you jump on this bandwagon? Or should you?

Here is a surprise. When I gave the keynote at PolyPack last May, I popped in on a colleague's presentation. He queried the audience as to the amount of packaging currently in landfills. I, like my other media brain washed participants, thought is was 70-80 percent. The truth is it's around 30 - 35 percent! SURPRISE. So, packaging isn't the bane of landfills that we think it is. Will all of this hubbub around packaging saving the environment be a flash in the pan

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