The Process

Faculty Guides

Amaranta Nehru

Kuntal De

The Missing Link (?)

Trying to Join the Dots (?)

Great innovations are happening in packaging design around the world. A little experimentation  and risk taking capacity is essential for something revolutionary to happen. The thing is that a lot of these designs and ideas cannot be seen on the shelves in India. The reason behind this is a mystery yet to be solved.

What is it that the manufacturers fear?
Loss of the identity of the brand leading to loss in customers or is it just mere reluctance in changing what has been going on for a while. It could also be the fear of experimentation and the consequent loss of money.

This is the missing link. Why isn't packaging in India taking that big leap?
To figure this part out, I am trying to get in touch with some people from the industry. Will find out what they have to say about this.

Mentors

Amaranta Nehru

Kuntal De

Just left with toothpaste

One of the Many Possible Solutions

To cut out the tertiary packaging of a product, some minor changes will have to be made in the secondary and tertiary packaging as well. These are usually trays, bins and boxes which are used for transportation. Minute changes in these might be help us get rid of the tertiary packaging.

For example-

Toothpaste used to be packed in metal tubes which were

packed in board cartons to prevent the sharp ends denting or puncturing other tubes during transit. The cartons were grouped together in large cardboard boxes. Technical innovations then led to tubes made from layers of plastic, metal foil and paper. The foil was still needed to retain the volatile

oils used in flavoring and to allow the tube to be rolled up as it was used. Further developments led to tubes made from a “sandwich” of different plastics. Their combined “barrier properties” can retain the flavoring.

Now that the sharp edges are gone, we don’t really need the individual cardboard box around each tube. Similar sized tubes can be placed on a notched tray on the shelf. The notched trays will be a part of the secondary packaging.

The Problem Is Not Packaging Design, It's Systems Design

INFERENCE

Start with all the different substrates for packaging, then add in the complexities of sustainable design, and you've got a nuanced study in systems thinking. Think of it like a computer keyboard. It's not a single button (everyone wants that "easy button"), it's a combination of keys, and how you press them. Companies hoping to make a change must renegotiate their product's appearance as part of an entire system overhaul, a process that most of them aren't willing to undertake.

Packaging is more than the wrapping or container we see on the supermarket shelf. It is also the box, tray or outer wrapping that protects and groups together products during distribution and the container or pallet that collates the groups into larger loads for transport. Most of the times, packaging is unavoidable. Moreover its wasteful after the product is consumed or is being used. There is a lot of excess packaging which is leading to increasing areas under landfills and oceans full of waste on the earth.

Misinformed decisions in changing packaging can lead to catastrophic results. For example- PLA (Polyactic acid) a plant based plastic that can be used instead of PET. When used in a place or on a product that doesn't have the proper recycling system set up, a PLA bottle can contaminate the otherwise-effective PET recycling system. It has become such an issue that some recyclers declared a moratorium on PLA until systems to collect the PLA properly

are in place.

Companies need to start with a radical idea: No packaging. Start with nothing as your goal, and just start adding on only what you really need. Just to say, Procter & Gamble sells

shampoo under their sub-brand Head & Shoulders. They sell shampoo, not shampoo bottles. Introducing re-fill stands or packets will save a lot of packaging.

Society has always needed and used packaging. We just need to find a solution which reduces packaging and is till functional. This may or may not be possible with all consumer

goods manufactured by FMCG companies, but if we really look at it up close, some products can have the packaging within it.

Revised problem statement
~ Excess tertiary packaging of consumer goods
(not necessarily in food packaging)

How to deal with This?

ANALYSING

  How to go about this.

From the data collected, it can safely be concluded that there is way more packaging than actually needed by the consumers.
More often than not, it ends up in landfills and pollutes the earth. New waste islands coming up on the oceans. Soon enough there will be more of those than the actual ones.
We will begin with the 3 R’s. But this time it will be backwards.
The key lies in REDUCTION.

Recycle is third in importance. Packaging should be designed to be recyclable and/or made with recycled content. A package or packaging material is considered to be "recyclable" if there is a widely available and economically viable collection, processing and marketing system for the product/material.

Reuse is second in importance. Packaging should be designed to be reusable, refillable, returnable and durable to the greatest extent possible.

Reduce is the most important of the 3R's. Packaging should be reduced prior to the manufacturing stage. This means reducing the number of layers, materials and toxins at

source.

If the makers of packaging can go on reducing the amounts of materials used, why have they not done so before? And doesn’t it mean that in the past products have been over-packaged? It is true that many products are now packaged in less material but each reduction is only possible when a new development is made in materials and packaging technology.

Repackage it.

REPACKAGE IT

After analyzing the ever increasing waste due to packaging, I came up with this mind map.

In a nutshell it says that companies can come up with improved packaging for their products keeping sustainability and functionality of the product as key areas of focus. 

Waste Due to Packaging

Aside from the plastic and cardboard wrapping the products come in, there are the boxes, the labeling and the paper wrapping or foam packing meant to protect what is nestled inside. It’s not unusual to end up with far more packaging than stuff, and the sheer amount of waste that results is staggering.

The increase in the amount of packaging produced, consumed and disposed as waste is only expected to increase as developing nations industrialize and gain additional economic power and as their consumers increasingly demand packaged products. China in recent years has become the world’s largest market for disposable plastic and containers and South Korea and Japan have been overwhelmed with packaging wastes that have proliferated as their
economies have rapidly industrialized and their landfills have increasingly filled up more quickly. Consequently, in these developing countries drastic regulations have been implemented to curb non-biodegradable packaging materials and to enforce empty-space ratios in packaging.