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Moments later, those same living rooms are likely to ring with the curses of parents trying to tear and slice and hack through the hard plastic that seals the dolls and video games and electronics from the world, including the people who bought them.
“Come armed” is the advice of Jack Vaughn for those mounting an assault on modern-day packaging. He’s a longtime packaging industry executive who now teaches students at University of Wisconsin-Stout who are pursuing the university’s bachelor of science degree in packaging.
A vexing problem year-round, the disagreeable task of freeing everything from batteries to memory cards from their hard plastic vaults is even more daunting over the holidays. Even those who really know the packaging business agree that many packages are accidents waiting to happen.
“We hate them, too,” said Robert Berkemer, director of the Packaging Research and Development Center at UW-Stout.
Opening many of the hard and heat-sealed plastic packages is beyond frustrating; it can be dangerous.
Dr. Matthew Bliss is a hand surgeon with Dean Health Care in Madison. Several times a year he performs surgery on people who have lost the battle with a package, he said. And it happens more frequently during the holidays.
“We see them a lot this time of year,” Bliss said of such injuries. “People will use a knife and the knife slips and buries itself in the palm or in a finger. These can be pretty significant injuries to nerves and tendons and muscles, and can require surgery and lengthy rehabilitation.”
Bliss said he’s not surprised; he, too, has been a victim of the malady that has even been given a name by the packaging industry: “wrap rage.”
“I know from my own personal experience,” Bliss said. “I’ve cut my hands a number of times on the hard edges of the plastic.”
Hall of shame
So often are such complaints heard these days that Consumer Reports last year founded a “hard-to-open package hall of shame.’’ Winners receive the Oyster Award, named for the plastic, clamshell packages in which so many products are sold.
The winners of the 2007 awards included the Oral-B Sonic Complete Toothbrush Kit and the popular dolls called Bratz Sisterz. Here’s the description from the Consumer Reports tester of the packaging encasing the dolls:
“They had about 50 restraints, including a cardboard and plastic box, tape, tabs, cardboard banner, plastic bags, rubber bands, hard-plastic bands, molded plastic covers, glue, wires, string sewing the hair to the cardboard, a plastic tab embedded in the heads and pinning them to the cardboard, and a rigid plastic manacle around the arms of one doll, giving her a posture with attitude.”
Officials with MGA Entertainment, the company that makes and markets the Bratz dolls, did not return calls about the packaging.
Runners-up for the Oyster Award included those pesky plastic packages that contain energy-saving lightbulbs and the Military Force Playset Aircraft Carrier “with enough pieces to launch an invasion.”
Other items mentioned by those interviewed for this story that are likely to trigger wrap rage included stereo and television cables, video game controllers, batteries, numerous hardware items and many personal care products.
Started with Tylenol
Vaughn, with UW-Stout’s packaging program, said the trend toward impervious packaging started in the 1980s after the Tylenol tampering scare. The case made headlines everywhere.
“There was a groundswell of consumer reaction, and legislation was passed that said if a pill bottle was tampered with, it had to be obvious. That spread to food and household items. The goal was to make it difficult to open them.”
Today, Vaughn said, packages are made hard to open to protect manufactuers and retailers against theft.
“The idea is to make them pilfer-proof,’’ Vaughn said. Packages are made much larger than the item they contain, making it harder to drop it into a bag or a pocket. And the heat-sealed clamshell packages make it impossible to open the enclosed items in the store, Vaughn added.
Another reason for the packaging, Vaughn said, is the clear plastic makes it easier for shoppers in large stores such as Menards and Home Depot to clearly see and understand a product in the absence of help from a salesperson. And, he said, the hard plastic does a better job of protecting products during shipment.
Some manufacturers are responding to consumer complaints about wrap rage, Vaughn said. He said some packages now feature pull tabs on the back that make it easier to free the product.
But chances are you still will have to do battle to free a child’s toy on Christmas morning. Bliss said it will be tempting to pick up the closest sharp object and start jabbing at the package. That’s not a good idea, he added — put down the knife, back away, and get a pair of kitchen shears or heavy, blunt-tipped scissors.
Vaughn also recommended scissors. And an attitude.
“Come prepared for warfare,” he said.
Ron Seely is a reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison.
