What is the packaging? It is the first thing we see when we are buying a product. It is often the packaging which us to a particular product in the first place. But packaging is not only about making us desire to buy something, it also protects and whatever we are buying and gives us information about the product inside. It is impossible to a world without packaging; everything we buy has some kind of packaging. We need it; it clearly serves many purposes. So what is the problem with packaging and why has it attracted so much media attention in recent years?
The problem is what we do with the packaging once we open it and don’t need it anymore. Packaging for about 60% of all household waste. In Western Europe the amount of plastic we use each year is going up and most containers are only used once before being thrown away. Plastic takes about 450 years to degrade but even then it never completely but’gets broken down into tiny pieces which then pollute both the land and sea. Disposing of packaging is, therefore, a problem and one that we need to address. We need to think carefully about the things we buy and their impact on the environment. We should look for products with less packaging and in less plastic packaging. Ideally, we should buy products with recycled or recyclable packaging.