The economies (or not) of packaging: common sense dictates it's time we disposed of the oversized box.

A great many eminent scholars and authors have written tomes and detailed analyses about the RoHS and WEEE legislations. The theme is the same, even if the content varies slightly: We have all become environmentally aware. Many environmentalists are interested not only in the disposal of electronics or electrical products at the end of their useful lives, but also the disposal of the packaging in which these products arrived.

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This column contains no new rocket science. Rather, it is a practical look at the pros and cons of packaging from our industry's viewpoint. Packaging takes many forms and satisfies the needs of many different industries; it would take countless pages even to attempt to analyze every type.

Figure 1 shows a stylized workflow from manufacturing to the end-user. Every factory is different and this is not intended to be accurate, but rather to show the proliferation of packaging. There are eight elements to this simple flow; each has its own sets of packaging. Even if there were only two packaging types per element, we would still have 16 forms of packaging with which to contend. (An actual scenario is likely to be very different and use many more packaging variants.)

In Europe, the EU Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste has been in force since June 1, 1996, and similar waste handling legislation exists in many states around the world. Harmonization is difficult, however, and the directive's evolution has been characterized by political conflict between those member states where separate collection and recycling systems had already been developed and the other member states where nothing had previously existed. The focus has been "... aimed clearly ..." at packaging and waste disposal in the most environmentally friendly way.

Packaging suffers from a variety of conflicting pressures, just a few of which are shown in Figure 2. They all interlink in some ways, but also have distinct needs depending on their purpose. We cannot dictate how and when packaging should be used all the time; nonetheless, there are some pointers for the good use of packaging.

For example, most in marketing prefer large, colorful displays to attract attention on the shelf. If the product is tiny, this can lead to a huge amount of "dead" space. Recent exposes on the ease of dismantling end-of-life products included examinations of the packaging. One of these involved the dismantling of a Webcam from a massive IT retailer. Even though its packaging was bright and colorful, it was 30% larger than needed, probably to enhance the display. Worse, the box contained a printed manual written in 15 different languages, plus a CD with driver software. This CD has 650 Mb capacity, only half of which was necessary for the drivers. Why not put the multilingual instructions on the CD and include a single printed sheet with one-line instructions in the different tongues explaining how to load and read the CD? This case reveals a waste of packaging material and an enormous waste of paper.

Manufacturers and marketers will almost certainly claim efficiencies if all the boxes are the same size. They want to occupy as much shelf space as possible, but in doing so, likely disregard the impact of energy use in creating, storing and displaying such large items. Why not try flat-screen displays, for which display messages could be made easily, and the costs of doing so would be far less than the cost of the extra size of packaging?

Let's go back to our Webcam example. PET was used as a clamshell to protect the camera and act as a window to the device. Fine in principle and worthy as a display, but a disaster for recyclers who now have to separate plastic from paper and forward them down different waste-handling streams.

Some companies are realizing they can provide protection, style and recyclability by using a single medium for the packaging. Many formerly PET-packed products now come in egg-box style paper-based packaging with a smaller standard outer card box. The overall box is smaller than before, making it cheaper to transport and store in the warehouse, and easier to dispose. What was once large-scale use of expanded polystyrene as shock protection for computers and other sensitive products has now been sharply reduced, resulting in smaller overall packaging and less energy consumption. It has also been found that pulped fiber packing works as well as polystyrene and is easier to recycle. The purchase costs may be slightly higher, but end-of-life costs are much smaller.

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There will always be specialized and unavoidable needs--to protect half-built products, for example--but it should be routine for designers and marketers to consider packaging at an early stage to minimize costs and environmental impact.

So far, we have ignored the possibility of reusable packaging. The "waffle" tray for BGAs and other ICs is a good example. It can be used many times, just like a milk bottle, as long as it is treated with care and not damaged. A growing trend is to investigate reusable tapes for tape-and-reel applications. As far back as the late 1980s, ITW came out with a novel reusable tape mechanism; however, it was a little ahead of its time and was perceived to be uneconomic.

We could invent a "Design for Packaging" movement just as we have done with manufacture, test, excellence and many others. No hard-and-fast rule dictates how packaging should be used and designed, just as there are no hard-and-fast rules for any other Df methodology. However, a great deal of common sense can be applied to all these methodologies, just as there is common sense in not leaving on all the office lights when no one is around. We are in danger of inventing too many rules, so let's just agree to apply a good sum of common sense.

Peter Grundy is director of P G Engineering (Sussex) Ltd. and ITM Consulting (itmconsulting.org); [e-mail]. His column appears bimonthly.

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