The girls got new toys today, and we picked up some movies too, which meant that we had to spend a fair amount of time cutting plastic, untaping cardboard, and peeling away little strips of adhesive. The process left us with a heap of detritus destined for the recycling bins and trash can. This reminded me of a conversation I had with my mom a couple of weeks ago, when she mentioned that her mom, who lived on Cape Cod, didn't have garbage service. Instead, she had to go to the landfill when her garbage can was full. For her, this served as bonus social time. For most people however, I'm sure the idea of weekly dump visits would rank right down there with emergency dentistry or cleaning under the refrigerator.
That got me to thinking. If I was king (no elected official could hope to get away with this) I would remove all garbage service, making it necessary for everybody to drive their garbage and recycling to a central location, be it the landfill or a recycling facility. In a short amount of time, people would stop buying products with excessive packaging. If alternatives to certain products weren't an option, angry letters would be generated. Campaigns would be mounted and boycotts put in effect. Companies would stop wasting resources.

It would even be worth the additional fuel consumption required to make it happen. In fact, the extra expenditure on gas would get people even more worked up and lead to even more immediate results.

Think about it for a moment. Think of the resources that are squandered to make sure your purchases aren't nicked or dinged. Think about products like lunchables, where you end up with more plastic and cardboard than you do food (calling what lies within "food" is kind of stretching the definition anyway). Think about this the next time you have to find the scissors to cut through molded plastic. Lets not even get started on toys that are so trussed up as to appear inappropriate for their intended demographic.

Sure, we have made some headway. Anybody remember when cds came in longboxes? Of course, that was so they would fit in the same shelves that once held records. Pubic outcry, if I remember it right, was at least partially responsible for the end of the longbox. Some companies even offer customers the option of less (or no) packaging. I got a cool little tripod (or Gorillapod, as it is called) for Christmas from Jen, which if funny because I got one for her too. When I ordered it for her, I was able to pick the cheaper no-packaging option. This is good. More companies should do this.

Anyway, if I were king, people would really think twice about buying anything with packaging. Who wants to have to drive to the dump or the recycling center every week? Companies, faced with boycotts and angry letters, would have to change in order to survive.

But I'm not king, am I? I'm just one more person typing away in the middle of the night when he should be doing something more productive. Or maybe this is productive. If you're reading this, think about looking for more minimally packaged alternatives the next time you go shopping. Hit them where it hurts.