Instead of Hijacking a post about clamshell packaging in GQ, I’d thought of making one here about the top 3 packaging methods that make me furious.
Corned beef cans - The little key never makes it all the way around without ripping the strip of metal off, thus turning the corned beef into a brick in terms of usefulness.
2.)Slim Jim plastic. You buy a pack of small slim jims to snack on, take one out and bam, rips open without a problem. Grab another, and it takes a pair of wire cutters to open it.
3.)Snap on lids on milk jugs. Given some jerk will open the pull strip and leave it in the fridge, God forbid you put the gallon down too fast and the air pressure pops the cap off, usually behind a refrigerator or some abyss where it will never be found, and then there’s milk in everything except your cereal bowl :mad:
Those are my top three, in your humble opinion what are the worst packaging ideas or methods?
Pasta and rice packs made from plastic film that tears very easily - they often come with a self-adhesive tab so you could stick them closed again, except you can’t because they invariably split catastrophically on opening.
Also, paper bags of sugar - the top is sealed by folding it over itself several times, then sticking down. There always seems to be a tablespoon or so of sugar integrated into pockets and voids in the seal, which spills and scatters when you open it.
Packs of sliced ham or other meats (semi-rigid container with a film top marked ‘peel and reseal’) - they have two modes of opening:
[ul]
[li]Top film is too firmly glued down to the container - and the little pull tab corner just pulls off, or tears the film[/li][li]Top film peels back beautifully, but will not reseal[/li][/ul]
In a very niche market, machinists tools come packed in greasy paper, each part individually wrapped in special paper and slathered in this nasty grease that you need to clean off with WD-40.
Example of an item that would be extremely tedious to deal with: Gage Pin set…yes, that’s 190 tiny steel pins each individually wrapped in slime and greasy paper.
And of course there is a reason to pack them that way, but it doesn’t make it any better.
Cans of evaporated milk used to be an item on the “hate to open” list. I believe there was even a Straight Dope column on it, back in the old days.
They were essentially using ancient machines with ancient technology to seal the cans, which had no proper “lip” which you could use a can opener on. For some reason, I can’t bring up an image of a circa 20-year-old container, but here’s a much older one with the same kind of seal:
Cat food. My cats insist that the kibble I pour is fresh fresh fresh. The bags are supposed to be re-closable. Nope. Kibble bags with 3 or 4 clothespins on each on the shelf.
I’ve bitched about this one before. Bandaids. You’re bleeding, you probably have wet hands and getting those bastards open without tearing them or leaving some of the wrapper on the bandaid so it doesn’t work right. Hate.
Sometimes I get microwaveable frozen items that come in a bowl, with a plastic film over the top. The directions always instruct you to “peel back film to vent.” Fine. Only the film is glued down so well it’s impossible to peel it back. :mad:
Those packages that have something in multiple piece and EVERY SINGLE PIECE is tied to the packaging with at least two twist ties one attached to the back and one attached to the bottom, the twist ties are taped to the back or bottom of the packaging, then covered over with separate blister packs that have tabs going through slots in the package and taped down with nearly unbreakable packing tape.
Those coffee bags with the wire lengths that fold down on either side to hold the rolled-up bag closed: the wire is never long enough to close the bad for the 3rd or 4th time.
Many products come in zip top bags now. Unfortunately manufacturers use the cheapest possible 3rd world bags that either don’t zip closed or the second time you open the bag, the “zipper” tears away from one side of the bag meaning it can never be zipped closed again. Stop wasting money on them, then! They are NOT accomplishing the task.
Actual J&J Bandaid brand bandages used to be packaged with a tiny red thread, that you were supposed to pull to tear open the wrapper. But that never worked properly, particularly when you’re standing there bleeding. Now the wrapper opens by separating the two sides but it still doesn’t work very well. I remember another brand of bandages that had a wrapper that opened by pulling on the ends. It seemed to work much better.
Every goddamn thing from Trader Joe’s that needs to be opened. They use too much glue in the packaging, and it can’t be opened without using a nuclear warhead. Especially if it says “TEAR HERE”.
Lately I’ve been having trouble with string cheese packaging. I can’t get the two flaps at the top to separate so I can peel it open. I swear they are glued or melted together. The other day I said screw it, got some scissors, snipped off about a quarter inch, but still couldn’t get the top to separate. Then I tried to cut down one side, then the other, but it was like one solid piece of plastic all the way around, right up to the cheese stick. I finally got it open but geez! that was a lot of work.
Why, someone please tell me WHY, does a new shirt need TWO DOZEN PINS holding it in its folded condition? I’m never confident that I got all of them out!
What’s puzzling is that there are lots of shirts that are folded and held in place with at most 2 pins (or those things sort of like paper clips that I like much better). If those folks can do it, why can’t the ones with multiple pins? And please let’s skip the hard plastic pieces across the top button, and the cardboard under the collar, and the cardboard stiffener and the flimsy paper interleaved inside the shirt.
Re: Amazon, now they seem to be using that large bubble wrap (pieces are maybe 2x3" or bigger), which is so bulky that I feel like I have to pop all the cells before throwing it away (and it’s not recyclable). For as many packages as Amazon ships with that stuff in it, they really should do the work to find better, recyclable alternatives. We don’t need more plastic landfill.
All the big bubble wrap we get from Amazon has the “Recyclable” label on it. I’ve been popping it and tossing it into the big blue barrel.
My pet peeve: the bags inside cereal boxes. They use just enough glue that you can’t easily peel the bag open, and if you really give it a yank, the glue fails instantly and you shower the kitchen with corn flakes.
The Single Finger Salute to consumers with those little tiny tabs on the peel off seals on top of jars such as peanut butter. The tab is useless for grabbing. Just barely big enough to see. You can hear the manufacturer going “Let’s put a tiny, pointless tab on the seal so they’ll think it can be grabbed and pulled! Idiot consumers.”