Flipping through the weekly grocery store ads, my eyes zeroed in on an incredulous, budget friendly pantry-stocking opportunity – one dollar boxes of cereal. I told myself in a bizarre deep-throated Cajun voice that I only whip out on particularly giddy deal-sniffing occasions, “I gots to get me to the store, stat!” and so I did…as if there were a lightning bolt zinging my heels every step of the way. When I returned home and saddled up to my dining room table for a celebratory bowl of store brand honey-nut toasty o’s, I experienced an unwelcome epiphany -- my “deal” was anything but.
Beyond the cardboard packaging and extra poofy-plastic liner, I was left with what seemed to amount to a whopping 7.2 ounces of actual edible goodness. With a flash of you done me wrong radiating from my retinas, I bolted over to my pantry to scrutinize the remaining 11 boxes of assorted krispie-like cereal concoctions that I purchased, realizing that my frugalista high ended up severely impaired my judgment. As with my oaty-o’s, it turns out that my nutty nugget, flaky grain and poppin’ corn selections also over-promised and under-delivered with lots of air, plastic, and cardboard but very little in the way of actual stick-to-your-ribs action.
This phenomenon is nothing new, but when you’re in deal-seeking mode, it’s quite easy to become blinded by the light (not to mention the thrill of the cash register kill). Manufacturers have been pulling a fast one on all of us by implementing extraneous packaging strategies – which have only gotten worse in conjunction with our dipping global economy – but in addition to cheating consumers’ wallets, they’re messing with Mother Nature. Unless we’re absolutely religious about recycling every last scrap of packaging, chances are pretty good that the stuff wrapped around our food will end up being chucked into the closest garbage can.
What’s the wisest eco-alternative, however? Streamlining the actual packaging? From a consumer and environmental perspective, that would be ideal, but then we’d finally see with our own two eyes exactly how little a dollar buys these days. Manufacturers would probably not green light that idea. Of course, we could always just go cold turkey on packaging altogether like London’s organic, fair trade and local whole food purveyor Unpackaged has done. They dispense 90% of their goods in bulk form, totally free of manufacturer's packaging, which is great for the planet, but in some cases is not so swell for shoppers….like when they sneeze…or fondle the ham slices…or accidentally drop cheese on the floor and then quickly put it back on the shelf when no one is looking.
The two commercials above reflect an ongoing debate in France regarding how much packaging is too much…or too little. In honor of European Waste Reduction Week, the first clip urges grocery store shoppers make their selections very carefully in order to avoid the excess that could end up adding to our landfills. The second clip, created by an actual packing company called Elipso, retaliates in a somewhat amusing yet (to some) preposterous way. This issue affects all global consumers, though, and I wonder where the middle ground is. Should we compromise by remembering to bring our recyclable BPA-free food-safe containers to the supermarket along with our reusable bags, or is that even asking too much?
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