Excessive packaging – the war rages on

2019-03-13

According to the research, more and more customers express their views on excessive packaging, especially in the Christmas every year, the problem of excessive packaging has become more and more serious.

According to the survey,the UK produces more than 31 million tonnes of waste each year. Just a tonne of rubbish is equivalent to the size of a small car. At least 12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard are produced in the UK every year, which on average is around 200kg per person. This shoots up rapidly at Christmas time as people exchange gifts.

Other shoppers express just how fed-up they were with the huge boxes stuffed with huge amounts of infill such as, polystyrene packaging peanuts, bubble wrap, air bags or brown wrapping paper along with the item. Although there is a need for protective packaging for delicate items, shoppers constantly add pictures to social media exposing just how much packaging arrives in the post for even the smallest parcel, with comments such as: ‘What an incredibly wasteful way of packaging a tiny unbreakable item.’

Why are our parcels excessively packaged?

1.Speed – we all expect our orders to be on our doorstep next-day in perfect condition;

2.Inefficient operation – leads to increased costs, time and overheads, especially at peak times, such as Christmas;

3.Labour – more labour required to manually cut boxes to size to suit items;

4.Damages – leading to returns and a poor customer experience;

5.Lost products – resulting in additional cost for replacement items;

6.Poorly packaged items – causing customer dissatisfaction and negative publicity;

7.Changes in demand – varying peaks in demand and ensure products get to customers on time;

8.Price pressures – packaging operation needs to be efficient and as cost effective as possible;

9.Shipping costs – being a relatively high percentage of costs, returns need to be kept to a minimum.

Can WIN-WIN PACK prevent and stop excessive packaging?

WIN-WIN PACK has automated machines and systems that can resize and/or resize as needed, so there is no reason to continue excessively packaging. In fact with the right system in place everyone will quickly benefit.