Tesco, the UK supermarket giant, has embarked on a novel program that allows shoppers to leave product packaging at the store to be recycled, GreenBiz reports.
I assume this means that once you buy the product, you can remove it from the box, ditch the box in the recycling bin, and be on your merry way. My daughter would love this if the product was candy.
Kind of a new spin on the old “bulk bins” at the natural food stores where you simply measured out your flour, rice, beans, wheat germ, etc., and put it in a bag to be weighed. There was no packaging save for the bag your stuff went into.
The interesting thing about this test is that it will show what consumers really want in terms of packaging: if they ditch it, presumably they don’t need it.
But I wonder if the test considers the allure of the packaging itself in getting a shopper to buy the product. IE, the package may help with their initial decision in picking the product. Once they decide to buy it, however, the packaging loses its utility and they can ditch it.
So can a non-packaging solution aid with that buying decision — and save a lot of trees, shipping weight, ink, shelf space, and recycling energy? Could it be accessed by cell phone? I wonder.