Yesterday iLounge ran a well-deserved condemnation of wasteful plastic packaging. So many items we buy these days are encased in a tough plastic casing intended for dangling on point-of-sale displays. Not only is the packaging often far too large, it is downright dangerous. Last year I wrote to Belkin to complain that one of their impenetrable plastic devices had cut my hand. It's quite feasible, I imagine, for the inattentive to slit their wrists with one of these sharp-edged monstrosities.
In my mind, any product that comes wrapped in such a plastic case is devalued. It looks nasty, if not cheap, and gets my goat. Plaudits, then, to those companies that stick to good old-fashioned cardboard boxes that are no larger than they need to be. Take this exemplary packaging for the new iPhone 4 dock from Apple: Barely bigger than the dock itself, the little box is neat and exudes quality. It almost (but not quite) justifies the £25 price tag.
Such packaging is typical of the entire Apple product line. A great deal of care goes into the design and production of the boxes and the result actually enhances Apple's premium imagine. Presumably, too, these cardboard boxes are far more environmentally beneficial than the plastic stuff, but that's not the main point. Buy any expensive item, whether it be a Jeager Le Coultre wrist watch or a premium digital camera, and it comes in a proper, tailored box.
Suppliers (and, more to the point, retailers) of plastic-encased tat should take note before they get a class-action for slit wrists on their legal agenda.