Blog and News

It’s a difficult truth for a company like ours, but no one really wants packaging. Retailers need a way of distinguishing and managing products. Manufacturers need a way of transporting their products and making them stand out. Consumers just want the products inside. For all of them, packaging is a means to other ends. It is a distress purchase.

That explains why so much of it is thrown away. According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we generated around 10.8 millions tonnes of packaging in the UK in 2009. Although an impressive two thirds was recycled, 3.5 millions tonnes weren’t – wasting resources, clogging up landfill, polluting water courses and turning the oceans into a rubbish dump.

In the US the problem is worse. The country generated 250 million tons of waste in 2010 according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and nearly a third of that, about 76 million tons, comes from packaging.

So the prospect of packaging that simply disappears leaving little or no environmental impact is as alluring as it sounds unlikely. But designer Aaron Mickelson, of the Pratt Institute New York, may just have cracked it. (more…)

Kicking off on No Smoking Day and running throughout March the British Heart Foundation (BHF) have been utilising augmented reality app Blippar to “hijack” cigarette packs in a bid to encourage smokers to quit.

Information in the ‘Smoking Kills’ graphics on pack is recognised by the app when a smart phone is held up to it, turning it in to a cloud of digital smoke. It reveals what smokers could be spending their money on instead of cigarettes, including holidays and entertainment systems.

According to the BHF someone who smokes 20 cigarettes a day could save £7 a day, £49 per week, £210 per month and £2,555 a year if they were to quit. A survey conducted for the foundation found that 11% of smokers are desperate to give up. Once the app displays the content they are directed to WeQuit.co.uk which contains further content assisting them to kick the habit.

This is the first time a charity has used the technology in this way and it creates an interesting new dimension to discouraging smoking – without the use of gruesome images.

It’s definitely a distinct contrast against the packaging work coming out of Australia at the moment, that seeks to homogenise the designs of cigarette packs whilst generating graphics as unappealing as possible. There is a whole wealth of guidelines telling you how best to use the dank green, warning signs and horrific pictures of mouth and throat cancer.

Betty McBride, director of policy and communications at BHF says: “The tobacco giants are notoriously protective about their slick cigarette packaging – here’s a bit of slick that does some good for once.” She goes on to explain how there is a constant battle to find new ways to reach people so it’s definitely a breath of fresh air to find a charity embracing technology and using it in such a compelling way.

This Friday (tomorrow), we ask you to flex your creative muscle for good. 

Friday, March 22^nd is World Water Day: a day to be thankful that our children are not among the 3,000 that will die today from water-borne disease.

Unilever launched Waterworks in June 2012 to change this bleak scenario. Through Waterworks they bring life-saving water purifiers to those who need them most. Waterworks now enables anyone on Facebook to make a real difference to four lives for 10 cents a day. They’ve reached 75,000+ poor, vulnerable community members in Bhopal, India with Pureit purifiers since the launch of their first pilot.

This project was launched in the creative community at Cannes and with your help, this community can help further progress.

So, tomorrow when you wake up on #WorldWaterDay,  change a life www.joinwaterworks.com

Thank you for taking this time to make water work.