The world and especially its relationship with packaging can seem a funny old place sometimes, reflects John Byron
Once upon a time in this world everything had its place and everything made sense to all the packaging people who lived there. The pace of packaging life moved at a speed that everyone could keep up with and there were rules of procedure and quality control that the packaging people learnt and understood. These rules helped the packaging people to always make good quality packaging.
The big shop keepers of that time, who liked to call themselves ‘retailers’ lived in their own exciting world. They would often sell a vast range of products without even realising they were also selling a vast range of packaging. Many of the retailers would simply take what was offered to them by a colourful group of people who called themselves ‘the suppliers’.
The suppliers had an abundance of goods and would call on the retailers whenever they could to sell their wares and show off their new and exciting products. Sometimes they put their products in plain brown boxes with just a squelchy bit of print on them. This didn’t look good when they wanted to show them off to the retailers. So the suppliers would call the packaging people and ask what could be done to make their products look better and improve their sales to the retailers.
The packaging people would go away and give lots of thought to what they could do to help the suppliers and the retailers. Before long the packaging people all around packaging world were busy seeking new inventive ways to manufacture and present their packaging… they liked to call this ‘service’ and ‘investing in their future’. Lots of improvements were made to printing that kept cost down and made the packaging look exciting and wonderful.
This all went on in packaging world for a very long time, constantly improving, always competing and always keeping cost down as much as possible. During this time the retailers were also keeping very busy and were competing more and more. Sometimes the big retailers would eat up the small retailers by buying them out, this made some of them even bigger.
Gradually the suppliers found they were being told by the retailers what to supply them with, how much it should cost and even how it should all be packaged. When this happened the suppliers went to the packaging people saying, ‘don’t blame us if you can’t make it for that price, we have to give the big shops what they ask for.’
When the suppliers couldn’t get their products and packaging made any cheaper for the retailers, they decided to cross the big sea outside of their world and look for other people who could make them. They soon found different countries where there were lots of hungry people who would make their products and their packaging for half the price.
Sometimes the packaging wasn’t as good as it should have been because the hungry people didn’t have their own rules. So they thought the best thing to do would be to copy other packaging and this would make everybody happy and they wouldn’t be so hungry.
Before long huge ships were coming in carrying lots of stuff from overseas, this was good for people buying cheap products. It was also good for the big shops who still kept on getting bigger and bigger. The suppliers also had lots to do keeping up with demand and took lots of the good ideas from the packaging people overseas to be copied.
Occasionally mistakes were made and the packaging made overseas wasn’t as good as it should have been. But gradually many of the hungry people were now not so hungry and they could afford to get many more things for themselves. They even got a book of rules and trained themselves to always make good quality packaging.
Sadly the packaging people in packaging world were not happy, they were getting less and less work for less and less money… the future for packaging world that they had been investing in for so long now didn’t look so good. The packaging people called on the leaders of the land to do something about it, but nothing was done.
Then one day the oil companies, who were the richest in the world and had lots and lots of money, said they were running out of oil and nobody anywhere would be able to make products anymore in the future. Then the farmers said that because the country was so hot they were running out of water for their animals to drink.
All this got lots and lots of people talking about how they could fix things for now and the future. Some people started blaming so much packaging and said they didn’t want as much. So ways were found to recycle the packaging and use it over and over again, this was thought to be a good thing by many in the land.
Plastic carry bags that were given free to people by the big shops were no longer available. Instead people had to buy proper carry bags that they could keep using over and over again. Before too long everybody had lots and lots of nice carry bags in every house and because the big shops sold them they got even more money so they were very happy.
Over time most of the packaging people kept their jobs even though the world was still running out of oil. This was because more and more of the hungry people found themselves having more money to spend. So lots of them came into the country to live and brought their money with them. This made the retailers and the suppliers very happy and there was even enough packaging required to make the packaging people that still had jobs very happy too.
Then the big leaders of the land found a way to make water from the sea taste nice so the farmers were happy and everybody had lots to drink and everybody lived happily ever after.
Of course all of the above is just a children’s fairy tale, after all how could any of it be true in a world of sophisticated intelligent and educated people? How could we not plan ahead before draining our world’s resources?
What will happen to all those millions of plastic carry bags and what will become of all those trendy Hessian replacements?
There are answers if we choose to seek them, perhaps we don’t have them all just yet but I think more importantly, we do care.
We care for our planet, we care for our children’s futures, and some of us even care about packaging and the shear pleasure of making something for oneself rather than just buying it.
At this time of year it is traditional to look forward to the new year with hope of improvement for those suffering and perhaps a quiet anticipation that things will improve for the better. I am confident that 2010 will be yet another challenging year for the packaging industry and I am also confident if we apply ourselves to seeking real solutions to real problems then we will succeed. On that note I wish all Asia Pacific Packaging readers to have a most enjoyable festive season and an inspirational 2010.
