Plastic Rant

I rarely do this but I’m just going to have a good old fashion rant. My rant is about how much plastic we wrap things in. Now I’m not talking about plastic wrap. I’m talking about all the packaging that uses plastic of some sort. This comes from trying to open a CD. (Yes, I still get CDs because not all music is available digitally and I had a $5 coupon to use on Amazon.)

To begin with there is the plastic the entire CD is encased in. Try and find some place to catch an edge so you can open it. I usually use the pointy end of the cap of a pen. That sometimes will do the trick. You think once that is done you’ll have access to the case. But no that is rarely the case. There is then the plastic tag that covers the top of the CD case. That’s a great deal of fun to try and peel off. So after spending 10 minutes trying to open the CD, I’ve suddenly lost interesting in even hearing the thing.

The point is why is so much packaging necessary. If you buy a CD say in England, all you get is the annoying strip at the top of the case. Another example is if you buy a multi-pack of paper towels. In some cases all the rolls are packaged together which is fine. But in some cases each of the rolls is then sealed in plastic.

I have to wonder how much oil is used to make the plastic to encase all the many things we buy. Maybe a way to be less dependent on oil is to use a little less packaging.