Cookies with Kooky Packaging

I previously wrote a post about Oreo Cookies because they had not only a plastic outer package, but also a plastic tray and cardboard inside (you can find the post here). Since then, I’ve noticed Oreos in the store in a much smaller package, so it seems they’ve changed packaging and I applaud Nabisco and Mondelez for that. Unfortunately, the world of cookies with plastic trays in addition to outer packaging is still well populated.

Here are two types of cookies I’ve discovered recently and they both have boxes, plastic wrap, and plastic trays (and not as many cookies in the box as one would think from looking at the box on the shelf!).

LeClerc Celebration Milk Chocolate Butter Cookies
By the time I took these photos, we had eaten almost all of the cookies, but I can tell you that each of the six sections of the plastic tray that are different shapes for some reason (the cookies are all the same rectangular shape) holds three cookies exactly. That means a box has precisely 18 cookies. This seems like a surprisingly small amount for the size of the box and the tray. The cookies are not that large or thick. They’re really good cookies, kind of like a digestive or butter cookie covered in a layer of really good chocolate. But I am disappointed in the packaging. After finishing the cookies, we were left with plastic wrap, a plastic tray, and a cardboard box. The plastic tray and cardboard box are easy to recycle, but one must remember that reducing is better than recycling. It takes energy and resources to recycle. It’s better to just not produce all this unnecessary packaging. There has to be a better way to package these fine cookies.

From the box, one would hope for more than 18 cookies. Who knows what 240 grams means.

This is two cookies sitting in the tray (there are normally three in each of the six sections. The packaging seems like overkill.

I can't understand the different shapes in the tray either. All the cookies look like the this.

So much waste left after the 18 cookies are gone.

Dare Coconut Whippet Sticks
These cookies are interesting. They are like a tiny log of biscuit, a pile of coconut on top, and then a nice covering of good chocolate. They taste rather like mini Bounty chocolate bars. The packaging for these is even more wasteful than the cookies above. These are tiny little logs of chocolaty coconutty goodness, but they only put two into each section of this big plastic tray. The tray is wrapped in plastic. And they are in a larger than needed cardboard box. There are ten cookie retaining areas on the overly large tray, which means that exactly 20 little sticks come in each box. If one just threw these little sticks into a box without the tray, the box would be mostly empty. I’m sure there’s a better way to package these nice little coconut sticks without using so many materials. As above, I could recycle the plastic tray and cardboard box (but not the plastic wrap), but it would be better if unnecessary packaging was eliminated. Recycling takes a lot of energy and resources as well as producing these throwaway materials in the first place.

Spoiler, the cookies are not this big and 250 grams means you get just 20.

Cardboard, plastic wrap, and plastic tray make up the packaging for these little cookies.

Each plastic tray section holds exactly two of these little sticks. There are ten sections in this big plastic tray.

20 tiny sticks and you're left with all of this waste.

In conclusion, I enjoyed both of these types of cookies, but I really dislike how they are packaged. I hope that LeClerc and Dare will reconsider how they package these cookies and make the packaging less voluminous and wasteful. I want to eat cookies without feeling guilty about how much waste I'm creating for the landfill and the recycling depot. Ending overpackaging of cookies would make them all the more sweet.

Gillette and Equate Disposable Razors: Dense Packaging That's Totally Unnecessary

Disposable razors are almost always cheaper than buying blades for a razor. They are disposable by their nature and therefore create more waste than just a blade, but for some reason, the companies that sell them insist on creating even more waste with their packaging.

Here are two examples of disposable razors that I've bought in the past several months.

Gillette Venus Disposable Razors

These razors come in a semi-rigid plastic tray with a piece of plastic fused over the top that one must peel back to access the razors. There is a bunch of wasted plastic in this format. Why can’t they just come in a little Ziploc bag?

Equate Disposable Razors

These razors also came in the plastic tray format with the piece of plastic fused over top to be peeled back. There was a lot of empty space in the tray.

I just can’t believe that they can’t think of better way to package disposable razors. Or is the large packaging just a ploy to get consumers to notice them on a crowded shelf and in a crowded industry? Whatever the reason, I hope that someone stops this trend of giant plastic packages for disposable razors and thereby leads the way to less waste. Everyone benefits when overpackaging stops.

Cadbury Fun Treats: There’s Nothing Fun About a Half Empty Box

Because it's "fun" to get only a microscopic piece of a chocolate bar . . . 

We didn’t expect a lot of trick-or-treaters in our neighbourhood, so my husband bought a smaller box of chocolate bars that usual. He bought the Cadbury Fun Treats 45 count or 501 grams box.

This box was about a foot tall so it makes it seem as if your 45 chocolate bars might actually be a fairly generous size; they're not.

We left them in the cupboard until Hallowe’en, when I opened the box.

Great a half empty box. That's what every customer wants to see.

What a rip off! The box looked like it was almost empty.

It was half empty. It’s bad enough that Hallowe’en candy is even more of a rip-off then it was when we were children (how much smaller can these chocolate bars get before they’re invisible?), but then Cadbury has to add to that by wasting half a box with empty space (when there is already a bunch of packaging happening since each microscopic bar is already individually wrapped in plastic).

Why would they do this? Is it to deceive customers into thinking there are more chocolate bars than there are? Or that they’re bigger than they are? It certainly isn’t to protect the chocolate bars (as companies claim that “slack fill” protects chips in half empty bags). Whatever the reason, they should just cut this wasteful practice out. Wasting all that cardboard is disgusting. The generation that’s trick-or-treating now will be upset not only with the size of the “fun” sized chocolate bars, but also by the state of the Earth that they inherit. Yes, cardboard is recyclable, but reducing and eliminating waste is better (50% of the box was unnecessary, so 50% of it would not need to be recycled now if it had not been used in the first place and there would have been 50% less resources used on either end, trees, dye, water, energy and then energy to recycle as well as fuel for the recycling trucks and on and on). Recycling takes a lot of resources to do so it shouldn't make us feel that great that something that is waste is recyclable. It would be better to just reduce or eliminate that waste to begin with. Companies that have so many customers who are children should lead by example and reduce their packaging and footprint on the environment to help these young customers have a better future where there might actually be some resources left for them.

And there’s nothing “fun” about a half empty box of candy, Cadbury.

Believe it or not there are 45 "fun" sized chocolate bars in this colander. How much smaller could they get?

Sephora: Why Do Cosmetics and Skincare Companies Insist on Overpackaging?

When excess packaging is removed, this Sephora box looks way too large.

I ordered from Sephora a few days ago and received my package promptly. The box was a bit overly large, though not as bad as some other orders I have received. There was a lot of packing paper on top of the items ordered and then some bubble wrap under the items. 

Not that big of a box.

What struck me the most about this order though, was the amount that cosmetics and skincare companies continue to overpackage their products. I’m not sure if this is just to attract attention on overcrowded shelves (I have even seen people complain online that packaging on a particular cosmetics item wasn’t “pretty” enough) or if it’s to justify their high prices, but it really should be dialed back. Most of the products that have a ton of packaging don’t actually need it (ie. they’re not breakable, etc.).

For instance, I ordered a Boscia facial cleansing sponge. The sponge is quite small, about three inches in diameter and maybe an inch or slightly higher in height. However, the package that it came in was far, far bigger and made of hard plastic. The sponge wasn’t breakable and it was already wrapped in shrink-wrap too, so all of this plastic packaging seems very wasteful and unnecessary. Yes, it’s recyclable, but it’s a waste, so it should not exist in the first place (and the instructions printed on the plastic could have been printed on a little slip of paper to go with a shrink-wrapped sponge).

A big plastic package for a tiny sponge.

This package is ridiculously large and unnecessary since the sponge is already wrapped in plastic.

Redundant plastic.

I also ordered some Bite Beauty lipsticks that were on sale. I had forgotten the packaging that this lipstick came in as I had not bought one in quite a while. I opened the box thinking that I had received the wrong lipstick because the size and shape of the box were so different than my lipstick. But it was my lipstick. It was in a box at least two times bigger than necessary. I have blogged more than once about how I think that items like mascara and lipstick should just have a safety seal or maybe shrink-wrap around them and no box to reduce packaging. I stand by this.

Three lipsticks, three unnecessary boxes.

When one opens a box one finds the lipstick and then tons of empty space and a cardboard spacer.

The box is way bigger than the lipstick tube.

What a waste of cardboard.

Then there’s the matter of samples. With each Sephora order one receives three samples. But I also received a gift bag packed with a ton of other samples as a bonus. Plus, I ordered a 100 point sample of hair detangler (this was just in a bottle with no unnecessary box). The samples were all sparely packaged except for the Bumble & Bumble Hairdresser’s Invisible Oil, which had a glass and plastic vial and then a folded cardboard jacket which I thought overly large.

The Bumble & Bumble sample had too much packaging.

That's a huge jacket of cardboard for such a small vial.

I have talked before on this blog about “free” makeup or cosmetics bags and samples (you can find the links here and here and here and here and here). Many women (and some men too) end up with way too many free makeup or cosmetics bags from buying cosmetics and/or skincare products over the years and receiving these as a bonus or “free” item (really these are probably built into the price of the products sold by the company). A lot of these bags probably end up as garbage or collecting dust. I have also seen a lot in thrift shops. Even with giving away these bags or repurposing or reusing them for other things like packing (see my blog post) I still have way more than I ever needed.

Naturally, the cosmetics bag comes wrapped in a plastic bag and tissue paper. That makes sense!

Garbage before one even makes it to the cosmetics bag.

The tiny samples definitely don't need such a large package.

All the samples around the cosmetics bag that they came in.

The other samples added to the bonus samples and the 100 point sample show just how many things I didn't pay for in this order and how much more garbage and recycling there will be out of this order in the end.

A special mention goes out to Bumble & Bumble for not placing their hair product, Don’t Blow It, that I ordered in a box and just having it in its tube. A facial oil I ordered came in a box, but as it’s a glass bottle, this is acceptable because of the risk of it breaking in shipping.

Excellent packaging. No excess box.

When I removed all of the unnecessary packaging from the products that I ordered and put them back in the box from Sephora, there was so much more empty space. What a waste. If we keep heading in this direction, we’re going to be left drowning in a huge pile of recycling, without the resources to process it.

These are all empty packages and the paper and plastic and cardboard from just this one Sephora order before I've even used anything. So, after I use up things there will be even more waste.

A much smaller box or bubble mailer envelope could have been used for this tiny amount of stuff if packaging had been less to begin with.

Let's reduce packaging.

BioGaia Protectis Baby: Probiotic Drops in a Bottle in a Box in Another Box with Paper Too

A giant box for a tiny bottle of probiotic drops.

Without the bottle to recycle yet, I already have all of this waste.

My doctor recommended that I consult with a pediatric dietitian to figure out ways to ease my baby’s gas. The dietitian recommended probiotic drops by BioGaia called Protectis Baby. I am on probiotics myself and have seen their benefits, but I still read the scientific literature that I could find online including clinical trial results to ensure that I thought that this was the best thing for my baby.

My husband originally purchased a box and pulled the bottle out and I did not see the packaging. The second bottle, which we had to purchase about three to four weeks after because they only last about a month with the recommended dosing, came from Walmart. While the price was about $14 cheaper (about $28 dollars plus tax) than the other bottle that my husband had purchased from another pharmacy (about $42 plus tax), I forgot about these savings when I took the bottle out. I was stunned by the wasteful overpackaging.

From the size of the box it looks like the bottle of drops will be big (if one ignores the 5 mL label).

First of all, I should explain that this bottle of probiotic drops is about two inches tall and made of glass with a plastic lid (so when recycling it’s already going into two different bins at our place). However, the package that we purchased from Walmart was about six inches tall and made of cardboard. When I opened this box, I found a bunch of empty space, some paper inserts, and another cardboard box!

A box in a box and tons of empty space and a paper insert.

More wasted space in the second box plus another paper insert.

Why is there a box in a box? I understand that one box might be necessary instead of just a safety seal because the bottle is made of glass and could easily break in transport, but why are two boxes necessary?

As for the paper inserts, one was directions on how to use the probiotics, which could have been printed on one of the two boxes and the other was a slip advertising their various products. There were not even any coupons on anything, they just wanted people to know what else they sold. Most people now don’t find out about new products from inserts in boxes. So, this seemed like a waste too.

Upon opening the second smaller box, I finally found the tiny bottle of probiotic drops. So, one box held another box, two paper inserts, and a bottle. That’s a lot of resources for a tiny bottle that will be gone in three to four weeks. It was like a Russian Stacking Doll of waste.

There's the tiny bottle!

So much waste for such a tiny bottle.

All that wasted paper and cardboard

This bottle is so tiny it is dwarfed by even the smallest box.

Giant boxes for tiny bottles only infuriate customers.

What a waste.

I find it disturbing that companies who manufacture or sell children’s products seem particularly wasteful with packaging. Should they not be considering the future for these tiny customers? I’m not a rabid environmentalist, but I also don’t like seeing waste, especially not such blatant waste. One box is quite enough, two crosses the line into exorbitant waste and complete disregard for future generations.

All the paper and cardboard is going straight into the recycling bin.

Yes, cardboard, paper, glass, and plastic are all recyclable where I live in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, but that doesn’t mean that using all of these resources unnecessarily is okay. Recycling items takes a lot of energy and produces pollution too. It’s better to reduce or eliminate packaging where possible.  BioGaia, needs to rethink its packaging because the way it is now just makes it look as my husband cynically suggested like they are trying to trick customers into thinking that the bottle of probiotic drops is larger than it actually is (how many of us can accurately visualize what 5 mL looks like?). I pointed out to my husband that it’s a Swedish company and that in Europe they have had stricter packaging rules and goals than we have had in North America for a long time. My husband wondered if North American retailers required this huge packaging so that the item was visible on shelves and/or looked bigger. Let’s hope that nothing this dark is at play and that it is just another example of overpackaging.

And I'll be getting this pile of paper again in a few weeks since the bottle is so small.