Product test
Happybrush review: the electric toothbrush that gives you a sustainable smile
by Martin Jungfer
Why are so many products sealed in thick plastic these days?
8.12.2021
Translation: Patrik Stainbrook
Some packages are harder to get open than your average safe. There are plastic sleeves that push even scissors to their limits. Why must we suffer so?
No one likes this packaging
My colleague David Lee has also made his displeasure known. Further editors soon joined our cause, which is why I’m writing this article. And demanding an answer from both the packaging industry and manufacturers. My first few e-mails and calls were ignored. Then Mr Weber from Tanner & Co. AG, which handles packaging technology, came forward.
«I wish I could answer your question. After all, it interests me as much as you. Take, for example, the Canon CLI-526 multipack. You can’t open these things without getting bloody fingers, broken teeth or open hip fractures.»
No clear answer, but still encouraging. However, I hold no hard feelings towards Tanner & Co. AG from Meisterschwanden: they aren’t involved in packaging design, but in execution and therefore not the right person to contact. But he did request I get back to him as soon as I have an answer.
I will do that, Mr Weber.
Sustainability, blah blah blah
A few days later, I received a call from Tobias Krebs, Senior Product Manager, and Laura Böving, Marketing Director at Assmann Electronics GmbH, which owns the Digitus brand that produces my card reader. Finally, I found out the three reasons that are responsible for creating so-called blister packaging.
Anti-theft
Product protection
Some products, especially electronics, are sensitive to dust, according to Krebs. The thick plastic wrapping acts as protection. If the card reader had lain open on a shelf for two years before I bought it, it would’ve become so dusty that, in the worst case, my memory card itself could suffer. Still, there has to be a middle ground between thick plastic and no packaging at all, which leads me to the third point mentioned.
Visibility
People want to see what they’re buying. This works with clear plastic, but not with cardboard. «Such packaging is often torn open, thrown back on the shelf and then a closed copy is bought,» says Laura Böving.
Online trade and sustainability are encroaching on the blister
Human and product inadequacies are thus responsible for these homicidal blister packs. Or, to be technical, were. This is because almost all of the reasons mentioned above only apply to stationary retail; completely different rules apply to online sales. «Online, products can’t be stolen or touched, and can only be viewed in pictures, so the only argument left is product protection,» says Krebs. However, this could also be guaranteed by cardboard packaging.
What can we conclude from all of this? In truth, no one likes blister packaging. For the industry, they’re more expensive and complex to produce than other options, and for the end consumer, they’re incredibly cumbersome to open. In physics, the law of inertia describes the tendency of physical bodies to remain in their state of motion as long as no external forces act on them. Apparently, this also applies to packaging designers.
My life in a nutshell? On a quest to broaden my horizon. I love discovering and learning new skills and I see a chance to experience something new in everything – be it travelling, reading, cooking, movies or DIY.
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