Titanic Toothpaste Tube Housing is a Waste

Some products do not come in boxes. They are housed in their own package from which they are used and then a safety seal is placed over the opening of them to show that they have not been opened or used. Some examples would include certain brands of lipstick, eyeliner, mouthwash, drinks, etc. I am mystified as to why this isn't done with toothpaste.

My husband brought home two different types of toothpaste the other day. One was Sensodyne Multi-Action. The other was Crest 3D White Luxe. When we opened the boxes that housed the tubes of toothpaste, we were amazed by how much empty space there was inside the box.

When placing the tubes of toothpaste by the boxes that they were packaged in, one can see how much further waste is being created. Not only is the box a waste to begin with, but the larger than necessary box is further waste (and look at how colourful and fancy the boxes are, they're not just plain cardboard, so, again further resources wasted).  No one is going to reuse a toothpaste box, so this colourful marvel is going straight into the recycling box (at least it is recyclable), never to be used again.

Sensodyne Multi-Action:

This box is way too long for the tube of toothwaste. What a waste.

Crest 3D White Luxe:

This box isn't as long, but it's longer than necessary and wider than necessary.

I've read that there's an exception in packaging rules that allow manufacturers to package items that they think are vulnerable to shoplifting in larger than necessary packages, so perhaps that's how these manufacturers are justifying their very large and unnecessary boxes around tubes of toothpaste. I doubt toothpaste is a hot item for shoplifting, so this explanation doesn't work for me. I don't understand why a safety seal, either sticker or a bit of plastic around the neck wouldn't make a better, less wasteful packaging solution for tubes of toothpaste.

This is overpackaging.

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.