How design-technology for packaging creates delight, simplicity, and sustainability

By Cheryl E. Harrison

Most packaging brings me anxiety.

Packages are taking over my home and my life, from laundry detergent packs to soap bottles to toothpaste tubes.

Not to mention all the packages displayed on my refrigerator shelves, inside the vegetable crisper, deep in my cupboards, pantry shelves, cabinet drawers, under the sink, and behind the bathroom mirror.

I try to conceal all of them from plain sight. Still, these packages are a testy collection, growing in numbers and pushing the ceiling of my daily frustration tolerance levels.

I’m anxious because I can’t read the instructions, nor the small 6-point text for the cautionary information. Beverage containers slip from my grasp, liquid bottles spill when I pour, and pouches burst when I squeeze. Others are fragile, breakable and messy. I worry about dirt, danger or disaster.

When I’m in a hurry, a rushed opening can lead me to growl with anger or stab my finger. Scissor points may not be sharp enough, so I’ll rely on sharp knives to substitute. And, when I’m really manic, I resort to my teeth. With a good grind, pull, yank and tear from the side of my mouth, I can sometimes create enough of an opening for my finger and fingernail to pull the package open. My self-pride and confidence diminish entirely when I pull out a hammerhead to break the vacuum seal on a twist lid.

Within just a few days, my garbage pail is full and my recycling bin is overloaded. I’ve created a conglomerated mess of mixed, crinkled flexible films, smashed carton containers, bulky plastic jugs, aerosol cans, tins, plastic tubs, carton boxes, foils, and glass jars. My ratio is 30% product consumed to 70% packaging waste accumulated. Ugh!

Joy - Frame 7.jpg — **Surprise, Simplicity and Sustainability**

Packaging should bring delight to the consumer - not confusion or frustration.

Surprise, Simplicity, and Sustainability

So much of what we purchase includes packaging that is tedious, challenging to use, and wasteful. Opening and revealing what’s inside a package should not be a mundane routine or frustrating challenge. What if packages were designed to bring us a radiant smile, an unforgettable experience, or a delightful surprise?

Packages could fulfill so much more than their essential purpose of merely product containment. I believe that next-generation packaging can be re-invented to bring delight, fun, simplicity, and sustainability – a new, more joyful human experience.

Package with fun and surprise

Imagine this! A streamlined, elegant package that captures your eyes with something unique, tactile and irresistible. It’s a package that unleashes a memorable glimmer and fulfilling emotion the very nanosecond when it is opened. Just consider a package that engages all the senses of sight, sound, touch and feel. The package is balanced and beautiful, perfectly gentle to hold in your hand. So simple and easy to use. There are no extra pieces, no loose caps, lids, tabs or strips to tear, and no twists, lifts or pulls.

The package is interactive. It makes life enjoyable, and smooth. It connects to a mobile, a smart kitchen, brings you a favorite lifestyle moment and gently reveals your choice product – always ready to dispense. It provides everything that you’d ever hope to know about the product inside. It encourages you to explore the possibilities of the product’s many uses and it gives you personalized feedback when you do the right thing. It reminds you – it entertains you. It is reliable, safe, and clean. You trust its very soul.

On the go, this is a package that moves with you and close to you. It can be opened with just one hand while you drive, ride, hang on, hold on or move on. This is the package that frees you to live your life in the way you want to live it. It is the package that works with you, rather than against you. It’s the package that you want to share with your friends because it is fun. It’s a treasured package of your choice. It’s a package that brings you joy.

Package for Simplicity

The simple package is an easy-to-use package. Let us design the package with a human-centric experience in mind. It can be a package that is ergonomic for small hands, large hands, delicate and weak hands – for toddlers, grandmothers, weightlifters, and those with poor eyesight. Let us not require labels and instructions on how to open and dispense. The use of a package must be instantly intuitive.

The package uses only one material and does not have applied labels, glues, added stickers, and pull strips. The package is just what it needs to be in size, shape, form. It can be sold in the quantities desired and can be easily transported and stored without taking up extra space.

This package also provides information that it is easy to read, know, and trust, with open-source traceability. It carries digital data embedded in its films with watermarks and tags conveying information about the origins of the product contained, its product safety, its type, and ingredients.

As a “smart package” it relays information to sensors as to the proper shelf-life, storage temperatures, and product preparation details. The package carries the data required to encourage multi-use and re-use in practice. It’s simplicity also brings simple improvements to ease the functions of our life – everyday.

Package for Sustainability

Under all circumstances, packages should not be intentionally tossed as litter into the streets, forests, or rivers. Strewn packages must never flow into pristine oceans or be poured into landfills causing toxic emissions. For packages we choose and use, there should be no anxiety, no risk, no waste – only value.

The next-generation package is designed for its end use and re-use value. This is a package that will self-sort with its own end-of-life intelligence embedded. It will direct its own optimal after-use pathway through a no-waste stream.

The sustainable, “smart” package will be destined to be either recycled, composted, or re-filled and re-used. It will be “programmed” with both visual printed cues and embedded digital information to follow a green, blue or yellow pathway of its predestined, optimal life cycle of circularity.

This is a package that activates a kitchen compactor to pre-sort plastics waste streams. It’s a package that has invisible watermarks for scanning its embedded data. It relays its life’s destiny in flashing colored lights as soon as it nears and triggers to open the appliance’s widening shiny metal drop-slot mouth.

Flashing the sensor light to green – beep!

“Green-coded” packages are composed of hybrid film polymers made from plant-based and certified bio-based sources. Used films will transform to bioenergy, rich composts, fertilizers, and to agriculture inputs to new polymer feedstocks.

Flashing the sensor light to blue – beep – beep!

In turn, “blue-coded” packages are made from other complex and durable polymers and will convert to make new packages over again. Certain packages will be shredded or flattened inside the compactor, sub-sorted, and aggregated by kind as they prepare to direct themselves straight into state-of-the-art recycling processes. Blue-coded packages are designed to be re-converted into specialty chemicals, consumer products, industrial and construction materials, and new types and forms of containers, furniture, casings, cars, and thousands of other uses.

Flashing the sensor light to yellow – beep – beep – beep!

“Yellow-coded” packages feature their stunning design for re-use potential. These are durable deposit-return packs that can be cleaned, re-filled, and safely re-used many multiple times. These are the packages that route directly to reverse vending machines. Pick-up systems will collect and clean these used packages and will determine their ideal re-use and return value. Packages will be scanned and sensor-sorted – with UV sanitization and re-delivery routing for re-use. Over-used containers, way past their life, will route into their next stage, with proper collection, recycling, and proper materials conversion into a circular second life.

It becomes our preference to choose these green, blue, and yellow coded packages that are most sustainable for their superior design. These will be the defining packages because of their ease of use and their ability to eliminate waste – meaning packaging waste, plastic waste, product waste, and waste of personal time. We will purchase and enjoy these human-centric packages which hold the promise for eliminating our packaging frustration, anxiety, and litter found in all corners of our lives.

Next-generation packages can be designed to bring us joy and delight.

These are the magical, “smart”, safe, essential, eco-friendly packages – already in development that must – and will become a big part of a more sustainable, emerging future.

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The author, Cheryl E. Harrison is a Senior Director of PopPack LLC in the USA and Vivia Ventures in the Netherlands. She is an Activator Member of the US Plastics Pact, and member of AIPIA (Active & Intelligent Packaging Industry Assoc.). She directs design-technology in San Francisco and the Netherlands, creating breakthrough commercial packaging alternatives to “design-out” packaging material waste. These packaging solutions offer positive, convenient experiences for consumers, with increased value for both brand companies and packaging producers who are committed to circular economy goals. Prototype development, commercial production, and commercial licensing contracts are fulfilled through its operations in the USA and the Netherlands. www.poppack.com, www.viviaventures.nl The ideas and concepts shared in this article are those of the author.

Package the Joy

How design-technology for packaging creates delight, simplicity, and sustainability