Hated plastic 'clamshell' packaging will be scrapped, say industry insiders

It took about two decades for the packaging creature known as the 'oyster' or 'clamshell' to conquer the world of consumer electronics. But the hard-to-open casings of plastic, considered by many to be toxic, could start to disappear soon, according to experts in packaging and design.

Although clamshells remain widespread, a small but growing number of companies are housing products in packages that are not only easier to open, but manufactured more efficiently, with recycled or recyclable ingredients.

Oyster packaging forms what may seem like a hermetic seal around a wide array of goods, including MP3 players, Webcams, USB drives, mice, headsets, software, printer cartridges and batteries.

"Clamshell packaging is so over," says Wendy Jedlicka, a packaging designer. "We know it sucks. We're fixing that." Jedlicka belongs to the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, a group that has grown to more than 300-member organisations in a few years.

Despite the fact that more than a handful of manufacturers have been introducing eco-friendly alternatives over the past several years, retailers have favoured the rigid clamshell casings because they deter shoplifters. Plus, they're easy and cheap to ship and store and offer a peek of the product inside.

The expansion of big-box stores, particularly bulk outlets that lack display cases, will drive demand for clamshells by 5.3 per cent each year to $2.7 billion (£1.4 billion) in sales within the next two years, according to the Freedonia Group, a market research firm. At that pace, more than eight billion oyster packs will be produced by 2015.

But despite corporations' sustainability efforts, spikes in petroleum prices could hamper progress. Spinning plastics from fossil fuels is an energy-intensive process, but traditional plastics are still cheaper than anything made from recycled or plant-based materials.

Bad for the planet, hated by consumers

Although greener alternatives to clamshells are a small niche in the packaging world, they may win favour with the public for reasons totally unrelated to their environmental footprint.

Clamshells can make products impossible to extract with bare hands. Some attempts at grappling with knives and scissors have led to amputated fingertips and severed tendons. "The degree of injuries can be pretty severe, depending on the frustration of getting a package open," says Melissa Barton, an emergency room physician at Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit.

She sees at least one patient each week -- more around Christmas -- suffer cuts and worse, usually from box cutters and other tools used to puncture and pry open the packaging. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that there were some 6,500 emergency room visits related to plastic packaging in 2004.

Some packaging makers are creating resealable, snap-out, or perforated designs that could reduce the amount of wounds and cursing triggered by clamshells.

But the main problem for us, obviously, is plastic's potential for toxicity and the waste created when using virgin plastics for disposable purposes. "Consumers are becoming much more sensitive to the environmental ramifications of excess packaging," says Tod Marks, a senior editor at Consumer Reports.

For two years, the magazine published an "Oyster Awards" hall of shame for hard-to-open packaging. Last year's winner was an Oral-B electric toothbrush tucking clamshells into a tight plastic and cardboard shell. There weren't enough changes in packaging to warrant awards for 2008, but Consumer Reports will focus on packaging sustainability later this year, Marks says.

Packaging accounts for nearly one-third of consumer garbage, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. And plastics comprise 12 per cent of US waste each year, but are rarely recycled. Some scientists fear that irresponsible dumping is making a plastic soup of the world's oceans.

The European Union attempts to regulate packaging design and waste, and California's Rigid Plastic Packaging Container Law encourages the use of recycled plastics. Yet such rules are rare in the United States, where businesses rather than government are driving dramatic changes.

Alternatives

"We're aggressively attacking the clamshell market," says Jeff Kellogg, a vice president of MeadWestvaco. Its Natralock line of packaging features a pop-out, glue-free clear plastic display "blister" surrounded by paperboard of one-third recycled content. Plant-based plastics could also be used.

Compared with clamshells, Natralock packages cost up to 30 per cent less and weigh half as much, which cuts shipping expenses, Kellogg says. They also require less energy to seal in a factory, and can run on traditional equipment.

Competing products include Rohrer's Eco-View Pak, a mix of chipboard with a plastic display bubble. Winterborne's Enviroshell packaging mixes a recycled-plastic blister with cardboard of more than two-thirds recycled material and soy-based inks. The board and plastic aren't fused together, enabling both to be recycled.

Enviroshell packaged the Xbox 360 when it launched in Wal-Mart stores in 2005 and Toshiba began using the packaging in 2006 for storage devices. Wal-Mart's sustainability goals include reducing the amount of packaging in its stores by five per cent by 2013 -- though for such a huge retailer, it'd be nice to see a commitment to reducing more than that.

Even so, Wal-Mart estimates that that reduction would be the equivalent of taking 213,000 trucks off the road every year. The retailer is also one of many phasing out toxic PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, formerly the main material for oyster packaging. Its manufacture and disposal is believed to release cancer-linked chemicals, including dioxins.

Another alternative to plastic clamshells is to eliminate packaging altogether. Music and software can be downloaded digitally, for instance. And some stores opt to keep pricey products behind a counter while showcasing the samples, reducing the need for so many plastic display casings.

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