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Plastic, not-so-fantastic

Plastic. Fantastic isn't it? Since the days of Bakelite the world has been transformed by plastic. It is everywhere, and has allowed rapid technological growth due to its versatile yet low cost nature. As a product designer, I tend to have a love/hate relationship with plastic. I love it because it is so versatile, easy to work with, relatively cheap, and it allows me to construct things that would not be possible with any other material. However, these very properties have meant the world has been cursed with a plague of badly designed plastic products. One of the primary reasons for this being that plastic can be processed into almost any form using a wide variety of methods, and in my mind, this promotes 'lazy' and thoughtless design.

Plastic, the savior of the banana?

This issue of lazy and thoughtless design was reflected in a visit to the supermarket today. In Morrisons, they have a very good way of selling bananas. They are hung on vertical racks instead of just being piled on shelves. This means they can breathe, ripen and do not get bruised. The bananas are attached to the racks using little plastic tags, which also display pricing information. From the photo you can see that it is just a simple injection moulded part, which would be very cheap to produce. It gets the job done. Great stuff, three cheers for plastic, what a sterling job it is doing!

Not quite. The first thing I did when I got home was to remove the tag, where it was destined for the bin. I flipped the tag over to look for the recycle stamp... and there was none. Now this just plain infuriates me, as is there any justifiable reason why this is not made from recyclable plastic, or even better, from compressed card? It is this stupid and irresponsible use of materials that is going to cause serious problems in the long run. We already know that crude oil (from which plastics are derived) is running out and that plastics are harmful to the environment. It's all very well and good bringing in the WEEE Directive to deal with consumer electronics waste, but just think about the amount of food packaging alone that is still produced using non recyclable plastics. Consumers are slowly changing their ways, and are beginning to embrace recycling, but the vast majority of manufacturers and retailers are yet to get the message. So guys, it's time to start being responsible with your materials!