Is offline, printed anything really necessary in this age of electronic data?
Information in physical form
is manufactured waste.
Fancy printed packaging provides no data or usage intelligence. It just keeps piling up.
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The Waste Economy Crash & The Current Waste Crisis
by Victor Chu
March 25, 2009
Excerpt from the INBOX Intelligent Container Business Plan
pages 9-10
THE WASTE ECONOMY HAS CRASHED
The global markets for recycled paper, paper packaging, plastic bottles, containers and glass have plummeted. All across the world, waste is piling up with no buyers and no where to go. These heaping mountains of waste are quickly becoming compounding money mounds sucking the value out of transport companies, recyclers and governments.
WASTE IS NOT ECONOMICAL
In her majesty's United Kingdom, collection and storage of paper waste is costing the country 5x more than the value of the waste as it continues to pile up at a cost of £2million per 100,000 tons. In March, 2009 the heap is at 200,000 tons and is doubling every three months. By the end of the year there will be over 1,000,000 tons which could cost the UK £20million to store.
The U.S. exported 11.6 million tons of paper and cardboard waste to China in 2008. In October, commodity prices tanked and the value of recyclables decreased by 50 to 70% leaving container ships full of empty dog food cans and recovered paper floating in the port of Hong Kong- refused by Chinese importers. Copper scrap has dropped to $3000/ton from a high of $8000/ton. Scrap tin is down to $5/pound from $300. Recycled paper is worth 80% less.
“It used to be that recyclers would pay governments for these goods,” said Mr. Savage of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. “But now governments have to pay recyclers. What was once a revenue stream is now a cost to cities.” Recyclables are now heading to landfills as they become too expensive to collect, sort, process, transport and store.
WASTE IS NOT ECONOMICAL
One of the largest sources of waste is dead medium, disposable, single use, "fancy", "high value", printed product packaging. This type of packaging is too expensive for manufacturers, consumers, recyclers, governments and the environment. Every stage in the development and manufacturing of printed packaging costs people and the planet resources in materials, energy and health. Fancy printed packaging is absolutely unaffordable. Even the largest fancy print packaging company in the U.S. can no longer afford to stay in business. The $7.45 billion Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. filed for bankruptcy on January 26, 2009.
PRINT PACKAGING IS DUMB
Print packaging is literally manufactured waste and is becoming ever more wasteful by expending more and more natural life resources such as forests, oxygen, land, fuel, food and life. Fancy disposable packaging offers no real value to consumers, no product data, no user intelligence or electronic functionality. It neither increases the value of the product nor does it provide enhanced product experience or exceptional service. Fancy packaging adds unneeded costs to the transportation of products. At the least, it requires personal effort to unwrap and to dispose. At the worst, it will bury and suffocate humanity and the natural world.
NO WASTE = ECONOMY
THE SMART CONTAINER AGENDA >
Related Articles
China's Big Recycling Market Is Sagging
THE NEW YORK TIMES
March 11, 2009
Recycling crisis: Taxpayers foot the bill for UK's growing waste paper mountain as market collapses
January 5, 2009
Smurfit-Stone files for chapter 11 bankruptcy
REUTERS
January 26, 2009
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