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Published: September 04 2012

Buzz Fleischman - Columnist Page. Don’t underestimate cardboard

The importance of cardboard to our culture is on a par with astro-physics and the technology that allows us to speak to and see someone in Tonga through our computer for as little as 2 tenths of a cent per month. All we need to do is find someone in Tonga willing to speak to us.

Raw cardboard fresh from the factory is, by itself benign, but configured into box form it houses the niceties of civilization such as flat screen TV’s auto parts and candy.

Cardboard, neither card, nor board, but somewhere in between, is ubiquitous and while utile, can also mislead.

Let me explain. The packaging of an item in a gourmet emporium like Teuscher Chocolate of Switzerland for example, is more likely to be sold if we fall for the packaging.  In the back rooms of Teuscher, incredibly artistic, anal retentive and imaginative gift wrappers toil, tying tiny ribbons and affixing ornate figures to gift boxes you hate to open. Just seeing them is reward enough.

 In a business course somewhere in a college close to a large city that caters to self-motivated marketing mavens, a tenured professor wearing a sleeveless vest, white shirt and bow tie is regaling the students on the value of packaging in our society.

That speaks for itself.

A package which is 10 inches long by 2 inches wide by 1 inch deep looks like it could contain as many as 10 or 15 Almond Rochas with one huge picture represented on the package, in actuality only contains 2. Why? The package is the selling point. We buy with our eye.

It’s like big government; you expect a fair shake, but you don’t get a lot. It’s almost as if the packaging is more important than the product.

What do we do with the box when the computer’s been delivered? Save it. If there’s a problem and we need to send it somewhere, you need the original box. That goes for a lot of products.

 We’re savers’ and taken to the next level, American’s are ‘stuff junkies’ which you can see from the great amount of ‘store your stuff’ facilities being built.

What do we see in the chain link cages which make up these compendiums of crap? Cardboard boxes. Still not broken down flat so as to save space, most are still in their original configuration because we haven’t figured out the tab ‘A’ into slot ’B’ thing yet. That means we’re basically storing air, not density. We’ve probably saved more cardboard than the law allows, and, it seems, we’ve created a whole industry dedicated to it. We can recycle 100 pounds of cardboard into some of those coffee cup sleeves you get at Starbucks to keep your hand from burning, or we can continue to store it in case civilization breaks down and we have to send it back. Then we’ll go to Tonga, where cardboard is as rare as an Almond Rocha.

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