Pizza boxes, fast food cardboard and similar

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

On those boxes we can see greenwash in action almost in the extreme.

All those containers are marked with the recyclable logo and the imprint “recyclable” and while they are recyclable when they haven't been used the fact is that, once those containers have come into contact with foods, which is the case once they are in our hands, and thus have gotten food residue and/or fat on them, they can no longer be recycled.

Should they end up thrown into a bin for recycled paper and card the entire contents therein is considered contaminated and is sent to landfill as it cannot be used in the production of new paper or cardboard.

This is about the same kind of greenwash that we are faced with with regards to the so-called compostable plastic bags, disposable cutlery and such. While the latter may be compostable they are not in a general composting environment but only in commercial hot composting plants.

So, if the consumer believes the message on the boxes he or she will throw it into the paper and card recycling thus contaminating the entire batch which is then going to landfill instead of recycling.

At many catering establishments the same happens on a much larger scale where the staff is either unaware – or uncaring – throwing all paper and card into the paper recycling leading, again, to entire loads of paper and card to be sent to landfill instead of to where it really should be going.

The main problem is also that the message is not given out to households, as well as businesses, that even the slightest “contamination” will cause the entire batch to be not recyclable.

This does not only apply to fast food packaging. Your cardboard cake box, the “paper” bag with croissants, Danish pastries, or such from the bakers, the paper wrapper from the chips shop, and more, also are not recyclable.

When it comes to ordinary recycling of paper the fat and other residues on those items, which is seen as contamination, make this impossible but we must find a solution so that this stuff does not have to be sent to landfill.

It must be possible to even recover contaminated batches and either sort through them – manually – to recover the useable paper and card or, alternatively, have that paper and card go to a composting plant. Even, though I am no engineer, it should be possible, I would think, to take that material and pulp it for fire logs, insulation material for various applications including houses, or such.

© 2017

Pizza Hut Hong Kong turns boxes into smartphone projectors

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Pizza Hut's Hong Kong operation has launched a new promotion featuring a pizza box film projector for smartphones.

Designed by Ogilvy Hong Kong, the Blockbuster Box includes a special version of the pizza 'table' – the little piece of plastic that keeps the box lid from being pushed down onto the pizza topping – featuring a lens.

Customers punch out a perforated circle on one side of the box in the side, insert the lens and then slot their smartphone behind it, allowing whatever is on the screen to be projected onto a wall.

The boxes also have QR codes on which can scan to get a free movie download.

There are four different themed boxes -- Fully Loaded box for action movies, Slice Night for scary movies, Hot & Ready for romance, and Anchovy Armageddon for sci-fi.

The Blockbuster Box has so far only been released in Hong Kong.

This shows that there is a way, and there have been other examples, to design packaging in many different ways to have a second use, and if done right one that extends for some time to come. It is all a matter of designers getting their thinking caps on and thinking outside the box, pardon the pun.

But it is not just cardboard boxes of many different kinds that could be given a design makeover that would give people an immediate idea as to a reuse or second use of the packaging. A multitude of other packaging could also be designed in such as way as to have an obvious second use. It has been done before and in some cases is being done still, such as certain mustard brands and types, and certain chocolate spreads whose glass containers are, in fact, created with a second use automatically in mind in that they become drinking glasses. Still there are many people who just toss them out after use rather than washing them out and adding them to their cupboard stock.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that some people may be too lazy to clean such glasses to retain them for use, or to remake some other packing into useful things that they have been designed to become after, they should still be created. There will be enough people who will happily use such products and thus much of what otherwise would be waste could and would be kept out of the landfill sites.

© 2015