Better packaging can cut waste in tubes
MANUFACTURERS CAN PROVIDE AN
ADDITIONAL, WIDER, TAMPERPROOF
OPENING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BOTTLE OR TUBE. THIS WAY, CONSUMERS CAN RETRIEVE THE OTHERWISE INACCESSIBLE
QUANTITY OF GEL OR LOTION IN A TUBE
OR A BOTTLE
Do you have any idea how much of that expensive body moisturiser you waste when you discard that opaque plastic bottle, thinking that it’s empty? I was really shocked when a friend showed me the quantity. She said she cut open the container and scooped out with a spoon the moisturiser that was refusing to come out. It filled to the brim, an empty face cream bottle. ‘That’s a lot of lotion’ she said. Since the plastic bottles are opaque, we do not even realize the loss.
To quantify the residual product wastage accurately, I retracted a moisturiser container that I had thrown into the waste basket because the dispenser had refused to pump the lotion anymore. The quantity of the moisturiser declared on the bottle was 400 ml and its price was Rs 350. I cut it and pushed out the viscous liquid into a 50 ml bottle –it filled to the top. So every time we throw out such a bottle, we are losing more than 10 per cent of the con- tent that we have paid for and in monetary terms, more than Rs 35.
And it’s not just your daily moisturiser that you waste every month. If you look around your room, you will find many bottles and tubes containing toiletries and expensive cosmetics (including your hand wash and sunscreen lotion) that do not dispense the entire content. Similarly, in the kitchen, you can see a variety of sauces — ketchup, mayonnaise, chocolate sauce, chilli sauce and mustard sauce, that refuse to come out of the bottle. Likewise, there would be con- siderable loss of medicines sold in tubes and sometimes even in bottles, because of their packaging, all adding up to a huge monetary loss to the consumer. And to consumers as a class, it would run into millions of rupees. And I am sure consumers also waste a considerable amount of time and energy trying to squeeze out the residual fluids and gels from their containers.
In 2009, the Us-based Consumer Reports magazine had cut open six types of products in a range of dispensers and containers and measured the quantity that remained inaccessible to the consumer. Thus as against the declared quantity on the package, the loss suffered by consumers in respect of skin lotions in pump dispensers ranged between 17-25 per cent. It was anywhere between 3 and 15 per cent when it came to condiments.
It’s not as if manufacturers are unaware of this problem– I am sure they know the exact quantity that a consumer loses from these packages and I would not be surprised if they deliberately keep the packaging opaque so that consumers do not get to know the quantity that remains in the container and goes waste.
This brings up a very pertinent question: who should pay for this wastage? Or to put it differently, why should consumers pay for quantities that they do not get to use? Consumers must demand that manufacturers provide better packaging that eliminates such loss or do not charge consumers for the quantity that they cannot access.
May be, manufacturers can provide an additional, wider, tamperproof opening in the middle of the bottle or tube. This way, consumers can retrieve the otherwise inaccessible quantity of gel or lotion in a tube or a bottle. Interestingly an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Prof Kripa Varanasi and Dr Dave Smith, have come up with a patented slippery coating that enables complete dispensation of the product from its container. Developed by them at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, the coating is custom designed for the content. Is that another option? That’s for manufacturers to decide. As far as consumers are concerned, it’s time manufacturers put an end to such wastage at consumers’ cost.