Marketing

A commenter on the posting on packaging informs me that environmentalists are protesting about "the large amount of packaging used for marketing purposes". This distinction had entirely passed my by, and was certainly not mentioned by Jeanette Winterson in her whinge on Question Time. It's also not clear to me just how large this alleged problem is - what proportion of packaging is used solely for marketing purposes. Still, let's examine the case.

We first need to ask what is the problem with packaging used for marketing purposes. It is clearly not the fact that it is packaging per se, since, according to my commenter, environmentalists have no problem with packaging used to protect goods. This can only mean that the objection is, in fact, to use of resources for marketing.

This being the case, we must ask why they are directing their fire against marketing through the medium of packaging. Why not other forms of advertising and promotion? Do billboards not use resources? Does a TV commercials not involve flying film crews to exotic locations with a vast and ugly carbon footprint to match? What is it about packaging which is so uniquely wicked?

We need to know. 

Comments

[IanP]

Because unfortunately people such as you and I end up paying extra charges to have it carted away.
Another form of people control and revenue raising under the guise of green policies.

Much of the packaging that we bring home from the supermarket is superfluous, but we are left to dispose of it.

[Bishop Hill]

At the moment we don't pay per kg of waste, I think. And as HJHJ points out in the earlier thread, if we do end up paying in this way, we are incentivised to buy products which have a level of packaging which optimises the trade off between protecting the product and minimising the waste disposal costs. I'm still highly unconvinced that much of the packaging we use is superfluous.