NeilMed NasoGel Nasal Spray has Needless Bulk

My husband bought a saline nasal spray to use on the airplane the other day. I opened the box of NeilMed NasoGel Spray so that he could pack the nasal spray and was astounded by all of the packaging.

Who would guess that inside this box there is a hermetically sealed bottle along with enough paper to create a piñata?

The nasal spray was not particularly big, perhaps a few inches high and an inch wide, but the box that it came in was much bigger. I don't even understand why it was in a box, because the nasal spray was completely sealed in plastic all the way around it's bottle and nozzle and cap.

So much extra space at the top of the box.

Why is this box so big?

Inside the box there was not one, but three enclosures. There was a big English pamphlet with various ads for the company's products, a French language ad pamphlet (these are both glossy and colourful and quite thick), and a sheet of coupons for other products made by the same company, but not a coupon for the product that one just purchased (so I would think less likely to be used).

Nasal spray, box, and a pile of different enclosures.

English and French versions of voluminous advertising and some coupons. All highly coloured and glossy.

Both ad books were this thick. Why is there so much paper?

I didn't get a shot of the plastic wrap that came off of of the bottle, because my husband took it off on the plane, but that's packaging too. Why was this item even put in a box? There is an exception that allows companies to use excessive packaging to prevent shoplifting, but honestly if everyone used that exception, the world would be filled to the brim with packaging, since criminals will steal whatever they have the will and desire to steal, regardless of size. NeilMed NasoGel Spray is definitely a prime example of overpackaging.

Plethoric Pomelo Packaging

I was at the grocery store the other day in the produce section. I noticed that pomelos are in season again. I was thrilled and bought one. It was only when I took it home that I noticed how complex and excessive the packaging around it was. First of all, for those who don't know what pomelos are, they're a citrus fruit from Asia that are related to grapefruit and taste sort of like a sweeter or milder grapefruit. As everyone knows, citrus fruits have their own natural package, a peel. So, they shouldn't need any package (I'm waiting for someone in the comments section to come up with some B.S. reason for this extra packaging that comes from the citrus distributors themselves and not from actual fact).

Despite its thick and protective peel (the thickness of a grapefruit peel), this pomelo was wrapped in a mesh net, with a fake leaf on top, and a plastic ribbon around with panda bears on it (something threatened with extinction and it's on something that using tons of resources and therefore threatening the environment how bizarre).

After I took the mesh net off with scissors, I found that the pomelo was wrapped in plastic wrap. Why?!

It was a package (peel) surrounded by a plastic package, surrounded by a mesh net package, surrounded by plastic ribbon with a fake leaf on top.

This is a crazy amount of packaging for just one piece of fruit that already comes in a package. I should also point out that other than the plastic wrap which could be recycled with shopping bags, none of the packaging was recyclable so it will be going to the landfill (other than the citrus peel, which is of course compost).

What will we see next? Bananas in plastic wrap and bags? This is a prime example of overpackaging.

Misleading Doritos

I bought a bag of Doritos the other day. The front of the bag said 25 grams more. It certainly looked like a very big bag of Doritos.

The bag looks gigantic, but those who are expecting a ton of Doritos will be disappointed when they open the bag.

But when I opened the bag, it was only half full.

This is not the bag after I had a snack attack. This is what it looked like when I opened it. What a waste of packaging!

The fill line is where my thumb is. So what's the point of the other half of the bag? Do we just want extra garbage for the landfill (after all this package is not even recyclable)?

Why do companies like Frito-Lay (who makes Doritos), insist on using giant packages and only filling them part way? They would save money if they used packages that fit the amount of product being sold, instead of something much bigger than is needed. I know that they think that they're fooling us into buying things by making them look bigger than they are, but once the consumer opens the package and sees that they've been shortchanged and duped, they're going to be annoyed (and you know the saying, fool me once . . .) . So why don't these companies just use less packaging and therefore less resources. The way things are now, we're just all annoyed by companies thinking that consumers are idiots and by the overpackaging that's going on in the world.

New Smarties Packaging is Not So Smart

Yesterday I was at the movies with my mother and we bought a box of Smarties to share. In the darkened movie theatre, we looked at the box of Smarties. "Is this smaller than the boxes used to be?" I asked. "Yes of course it is. Everything is smaller now," my mother replied. She had a point. Pretty much everything is smaller now and more expensive.

Who knew that I was supposed to open the package from the right end and not the left end.

I opened the box and we were both mystified to see that the Smarties were sectioned into three tubes within the box. The sectioning was achieved by extra pieces of cardboard within the box. We could not understand why this was. "Look it's not even full," my mother pointed out. But nothing ever really is (think of that last bag of chips or box of cereal you bought- it wasn't full). This box was only filled to about 3/4 full with Smarties in their three little sections. We had no idea how you would eat the Smarties. Being in three sections would make the Smarties go everywhere if you tried to tip them into your hand. So, we did what my parents always do at the movies and tipped the whole box into the bag of popcorn.

Extra cardboard creates three individual sections for the Smarties to sit in.

I took the box with me home so that I could get a photo of it and that's when I discovered the purpose of the three sections. Turns out that we had opened the box at the wrong end.

Or eat them all at once. I don't need some guilt trip or directive from a package, thank you very much.

The box said "make 'em last." Yeah, right. I don't know anyone who would buy a regular sized box of Smarties and then save them through three different sittings. Sure the calorie content for each section was clearly set out on the box, but who wants to eat just 10 Smarties or so at a time? It's unrealistic and in the process the company has used even more resources in their packaging, ie. extra cardboard.

Door number one.

Door number two.

All three doors open.

I think that this calorie counting packaging experiment should be abandoned by Smarties. I mean at least 50% of people are going to open the package from the wrong end either through inattention or from not being able to see that there is a particular end to open (badly lit movie theatres, lost reading glasses, whatever) and those that do open the package from the right end are most likely just going to eat them all in one go anyways, so it seems like just a waste of packaging. It's overpackaging.

Sheet Sets- Why Do They Always Have So Much Packaging?

Last month, we bought two new sets of sheets to replace our sheets that had aged to the point of becoming holey. Both sheet sets that we bought from Winners came in very wasteful packaging.

Both sheet sets had a thick plastic package, with a paper insert with the name of the sheet set on it, and then a built in zipper (so mixed materials, plastic, paper, and metal, almost impossible to recycle).One sheet set even had a ribbon around it.

Inside the sheets were wrapped around cardboard. The cardboard definitely should not have been necessary. Almost everyone who buys a sheet set will immediately tear the sheets out and wash them before using them, so there's no point in them being preserved in perfect rigid order in a store. They're just going to come out of the dryer all wrinkled anyways.

This set of sheets came in a mixed plastic, paper, and metal zippered bag.

This sheet was wrapped around cardboard and wrapped in a ribbon. This whole packaged was placed in the plastic, metal zippered, and paper labeled bag.

A large piece of cardboard, paper, plastic, metal zipper, and ribbon as packaging for this set of sheets.

This set of sheets was also enclosed in a plastic, metal zippered, and paper labeled bag.

This set of sheets was also wrapped around a large piece of cardboard.

Why not just wrap the sheet set in some thin plastic wrap with perhaps a paper label or sticker? I have seen sheets before that come in a little cotton sack, instead of a plastic zippered bag, but I would argue that this is probably pointless too for who will use the cotton sack again?

Why does there always have to be so much packaging with sheet sets? It's just going to be thrown out. Who is going to use the cheap plastic zippered bag for something else? How many people are going to tear apart the different components and recycle them? Are all the parts even recyclable? The packaging is wasteful and pointless and almost every company that manufactures and sells sheet sets seems to use the same packaging. Why are we using so many resources to package one sheet set? It's definitely overpackaging.

Sephora's Lashstash 2016

The packaging for this year's "Lashstash" from Sephora, that includes ten mascaras (eight sample size and two full size) is less elaborate than some of the previous years, but still very, very bulky. Why does the box have to be over a foot long (12.5 inches x 7 inches x 2 inches or 32 cm x 18 cm x 5 cm)? The ten mascaras (eight of which are only sample sized and therefore about the half the size of a regular full size mascara) could easily fit into quite a small box. This giant box is made out of holographic cardboard with highly coloured printing on it, so it must have taken a fair bit of resources to create it. I'm not saying don't make it look nice at all, just perhaps make it more compact, so as to waste less resources so there will be some left in the future for the next generation.

In addition, the packaging is mixed materials. The box is lined with a plastic insert that the mascaras are slotted into. This makes recycling more challenging (and it's hard to pry the mascaras out of the plastic insert too). Recycling should be easy so that as many people as possible will do it.

Behold it in all of its holographic beauty (12.5 inches x 7 inches x 2 inches).

Eight sample and two full sized mascaras in a giant mixed materials box.

The different types of mascara in the box are listed on the box.

I love that they call it a "wardrobe of ten mascaras."

The mascaras are housed in a huge cardboard box with a plastic insert into which the mascaras are wedged.

Closeup of the individual mascaras.

And of course all of the mascaras have mixed materials in their packaging, making them more difficult to recycle too (plastic and metal and in some case some sort of rubber material on brushes).

While my sister and I love trying out the different mascaras every year from Sephora's "Lashstash," the packaging is definitely overkill and can't help but make one feel like ever more of a wasteful consumer. I would love to see the size of the packaging go down in future years, not remain the same or grow. And I don't see why a plastic insert is necessary in the box. Maybe Sephora could get "Lashstash" 2017 into under a foot long box?

Another Sephora Order: Packaging, Packaging, and More Overpackaging

Recently I ordered another few items from Sephora online. Naturally, there was packaging, packaging, and then overpackaging.

I only ordered a Becca blush, a Lancome eyebrow gel, a Claudelle oil for my mother, and an Anthony face gift kit for my husband. There was a bonus code for samples, this was on top of the regular three samples that are sent with every order.

These bonus samples came in yet another cosmetics bag. How many cosmetics bag does one person need? What happens to all of these cosmetics bags. I've seen lots of them in Value Village and the Salvation Army, but when these don't sell, where do they go? Do we ship them in barges off to other countries with all of the clothing that we're only wearing a few times and then casting off?

A pretty big box for only four items and some samples.

Box, packing paper, packing printout, plastic gift bag from Sephora on top.

Unpacking the box the samples and sample filled cosmetics bag took up a lot of room.

The bonus code at the time I placed my order was for a Sephora cosmetics bag full of samples. The cosmetics bag was packaged in a plastic bag and wrapped in tissue paper. It seems like packaging overkill.

The cosmetics bag came wrapped in a plastic bag and tissue paper. Why is this extra packaging necessary?

Inside the cosmetics bag were the following samples, all with their own packaging.

One of the regular samples (they include three with every order normally) was an Atelier Cologne sample which came in a tissue paper envelope with a postcard. The perfume was in a glass bottle top with a plastic stopper. So many materials and packaging going into just one sample.

Tissue paper envelope, postcard, and the perfume sample itself.

The Lancome eyebrow gel came in a glass jar with a metal lid, but the jar was also in a shiny cardboard box. Why not just put a sticker seal on the jar and leave the box out? On a positive note, the materials are easy to recycle, the lid and jar are made of separate materials, but since they come apart, it's easy to put them in the appropriate recycling bins. And there's no mirror stuck to the lid which interferes with recycling and is basically useless, because it's so small anyways (my last eyebrow powder from Anastasia Beverly Hills was a compact that was mixed plastic, metal, and a glass mirror making it very difficult to recycle).

The eyebrow gel came in a cardboard box.

Why is it necessary to put a jar of gel in a separate box? Why not just put a sticker seal on the jar?

The Becca blush came in a cardboard box. The blush itself came in a compact with mixed plastic, metal, plus glass (the mirror).

Why is a box necessary? Why not put a sticker seal over the compact instead of the big cardboard box?

Compact and cardboard box.

Inside the compact is a mirror and a plastic piece that goes over the blush.

The Claudelle oil that I ordered for my mother came in a ziploc bag, in a plastic and cardboard cylinder with a ribbon at the top and an attached card. Inside the cylinder was the small bottle of oil itself housed in plastic. It was an incredible amount of packaging for just one small bottle of oil.

So much packaging for one little bottle of oil.

Why is a plastic bottle housed in a plastic and cardboard cylinder?

The facial gift set from Anthony that I ordered for my husband was housed in a mixed plastic and cardboard box. Inside were the three bottles of facial wash, facial scrub, and shaving cream. I'm not sure why the box housing the three items was really necessary or so big. If a box is necessary, why not make it of only cardboard so it's easier to recycle?

The three items in plastic bottles were housed in a mixed plastic and cardboard box.

All in all, one Sephora order created a lot more packaging than one would think for ordering just four items. How can our world survive if each one of us is buying various items every year and each item is overpackaged or packaged in mixed materials that are hard to recycle? I know that consumers are part of the problem, but surely companies can get with the program and start being less wasteful in their packaging. Sure, the packaging might be uglier, but at least it would be easier to recycle and less damaging to the environment and would deplete the world's limited resources at a slower rate.