New metaphors for plastic packaging

Packaging is typically viewed as a product delivery system to be discarded having fulfilled this function, thereby wasting the resources and potentially causing further harm. Changing this situation will likely involve new technologies, systems, and approaches, but will also require people to rethink their relationship with packaging, potentially in radical ways that embrace, rather than reject, the signs of previous use that are likely to accrue in more circular systems. The present research used an interactive online workshop to envisage potential metaphors for human’s relationship with packaging and to consider how these might shift thinking and behaviour. In total, 16 new metaphors for people’s relationship with plastic packaging were generated during the workshop, including “I may have let myself go but you still love me” (the idea that continued use despite wear signals commitment), “lost and found” (the idea that one person’s loss is another’s gain), and “being a parent to packaging” (the idea that people have a responsibility to care for packaging). Activities might now be designed to disseminate these new metaphors. For example, we have established ‘(Pack)age Concern’ with the goal of “calling out cruelty to plastic packaging and helping them live a long and happy life”.