Dorsetmike
Member
I was thinking yesterday evening as I struggled to liberate some glue from its bubble pack (it was called adhesive, but I wanted it to glue some things together).
I got to remembering the days when goods came "loose" without all the expensive and frustrating packaging plastered with all sorts of text, from product name to uses and similar cr@p, who reads all that anyway? What is wrong with the glue in a tube or bottle, probably just not enough space for all the pretty coloured blurbs on it!
Sugar arrived at the grocers in a sack, the grocer measured it out on his scales into thick blue paper bags, tea came in large square plywood boxes (tea chests), although a few brands came in 1/4lb packets. Milk came either in pint glass bottles or dipped out of a 5 or 10 gallon churn. Most "dry goods" flour, rice, semolina, oats etc, came in sacks, other goods also came in bulk, cheese,butter and other fats in a block and your half pound was cut off and wrapped in grease proof paper.
What good does all the packaging do apart from make millions for the paper and plastics industries, and the design agencies (read parasites) OK we may want some brand awareness (or so we are told). The packaging on the glue I originally referred to greatly increased the bulk of one tube of glue, also no doubt the weight, that would add to warehousing and transport costs, some agency will have spent hours "designing" the shape of the packaging, the printing etc, all of this we have to pay for when we buy the product.
Further to this we now see in supermarkets, tomatoes in bubble packs - often still on the stalks (sorry "on the vine"), lettuce and other salads prepared in bags, beans ready sliced in bags, are we really so lazy, incompetent, or so busy that we are prepared to pay way over the odds for what are often, I'm sure, second class produce "prepared for our convenience" (they hope we will just chuck it on the plate without looking at it or feeling how limp it is)
When I buy fresh vegetables or salad I prefer to see exactly what I am paying for, so I will, for example, pick over the loose potatoes and select ones of the size I want without any signs of deterioration, so many times prepacked ones have had one or two which have gone bad within days, the bags are often printed all over so you can't see what you are getting.
I do admit to using some frozen veg, meat and fish, but mainly for storage reasons, being single I can't afford to buy some things in bulk , so I freeze it, not being able to use all of it before it goes bad. I also buy some frozen veg "out of Season"
I got to remembering the days when goods came "loose" without all the expensive and frustrating packaging plastered with all sorts of text, from product name to uses and similar cr@p, who reads all that anyway? What is wrong with the glue in a tube or bottle, probably just not enough space for all the pretty coloured blurbs on it!
Sugar arrived at the grocers in a sack, the grocer measured it out on his scales into thick blue paper bags, tea came in large square plywood boxes (tea chests), although a few brands came in 1/4lb packets. Milk came either in pint glass bottles or dipped out of a 5 or 10 gallon churn. Most "dry goods" flour, rice, semolina, oats etc, came in sacks, other goods also came in bulk, cheese,butter and other fats in a block and your half pound was cut off and wrapped in grease proof paper.
What good does all the packaging do apart from make millions for the paper and plastics industries, and the design agencies (read parasites) OK we may want some brand awareness (or so we are told). The packaging on the glue I originally referred to greatly increased the bulk of one tube of glue, also no doubt the weight, that would add to warehousing and transport costs, some agency will have spent hours "designing" the shape of the packaging, the printing etc, all of this we have to pay for when we buy the product.
Further to this we now see in supermarkets, tomatoes in bubble packs - often still on the stalks (sorry "on the vine"), lettuce and other salads prepared in bags, beans ready sliced in bags, are we really so lazy, incompetent, or so busy that we are prepared to pay way over the odds for what are often, I'm sure, second class produce "prepared for our convenience" (they hope we will just chuck it on the plate without looking at it or feeling how limp it is)
When I buy fresh vegetables or salad I prefer to see exactly what I am paying for, so I will, for example, pick over the loose potatoes and select ones of the size I want without any signs of deterioration, so many times prepacked ones have had one or two which have gone bad within days, the bags are often printed all over so you can't see what you are getting.
I do admit to using some frozen veg, meat and fish, but mainly for storage reasons, being single I can't afford to buy some things in bulk , so I freeze it, not being able to use all of it before it goes bad. I also buy some frozen veg "out of Season"
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