Full of Eastern promise

Aren’t columns for airing those “what gets my goat” type of arguments? Well… in that case, it has to be Marks and Spencers’ food packaging. But, I hear you all groan, “Oh no, might have guessed, she’s one of those over-dressed women who only buys M&S grub in case she breaks a nail while peeling a potato”. Wrong, but I do like my treats. And M&S just happens to be a close source of snacky niceness.

OK, the food may be squeaky clean, but why does the packaging have to be surgically sterile, wrapped, wrapped and triple-wrapped in moulded plastic, with extra seals, a cardboard outer carton, a little plastic bag, then a carrier, and don’t forget your plastic spoon, wrapped straw, and that nice bit of tissue your sticky bun sits on? What a waste of resources, effort, and my time as I struggle to get to the goodies. And, more importantly, what a blatant disregard by M&S for the environment. Obviously the nice shop doesn’t give a hoot about saving the planet.

Now I’ve got no gripe with the way M&S’s designers work with the forms they’re given. You can see the food, the photography on the cardboard wrapper is definitely enticing, and yes, it closely resembles what’s inside rather than presenting an idealised version of a disappointing product. But, I suspect that the packaging designers rarely get the opportunity to radically rethink fundamentals. Remaking a tool to form a plastic sandwich wrapper is a major undertaking, and at the sort of scale these food stuffs are produced, unit cost and keeping the production lines flowing must be the most important factors.

But there are some real “no-nos” which can be avoided. Printing plastic on glass, for instance, may excite packaging designers no end, with the possibilities for a unique branding characteristic, but the bottles have to undergo a costly method of recycling to separate the glass from the coating, and one that’s still only available in the US. So isn’t it a tad irresponsible to specify such a troublesome process in the first place?

In the case of plastic containers, couldn’t images be screened on to the flat plastic before it’s formed, saving the need for an extra label? And if efficient, integrated seals were developed we wouldn’t need the extra strips. Such innovations may even mean the packs are easier to open.

But it shouldn’t be a case of let the engineers solve the problems. Designers could fundamentally change our expectations of packaging. Remember the book How to Wrap Eggs, which introduced Western designers to some ingenious solutions from the East using natural materials? Cradling eggs in a knotted straw mesh provides a cheap, portable and biodegradable form of packaging. Sadly, in the developing world, traditional methods are being ousted. Western-style packaging is regarded as sophisticated and therefore preferable. Last year when I was in Burma, the only discarded packaging I saw were those mini, stripey plastic bags, known locally as “American bags”, which littered the sides of roads and railway lines. Every other form of container and wrapping was either collected and reused out of necessity or was biodegradable, banana leaves being a tried and tested wrapping for food.

We’re in the process not only of destroying our environment, but of spreading the rot in the name of progress. The problem is we’re so used to it, we’ve become immune. It’s only when I saw what was happening to “virgin territory” that I realised the amount of crap we live with in the West.

Funnily enough, it’s designers working in the most superficial of industries who are signalling a key change. When designing a CD cover, the easiest option is to go for the omnipresent plastic box. They present a near monopoly in the industry, and are consequently very cheap. But they’re environmentally devastating.

What began as a marketing ploy in an effort to stand out on over-crowded shelves could change all that. Card, rubber and foil are just some of the materials being used for limited edition CD packs. They cost more per unit, but the extra is usually borne by the artist.

The effect on sales is unmistakable, so more and more designers and their clients are ditching the easy option. And if a mass- produced item like a CD can be repackaged, then why can’t my sandwich?