In a recent example of egregious plastic waste, one Nintendo fan took to Reddit to share a photo of a purchase and ridiculous packaging it came in.
"So much plastic for so little reason," the poster wrote, sharing with the other members of the r/Anticonsumption subreddit. The accompanying photo showed a screenshot of a couple of posts from X, formerly known as Twitter, in which a Nintendo Switch Zelda game, itself a tiny cartridge, came in a box made for DVDs.
"I'm still disappointed there's no booklet whenever I open a new game…" the original tweet read.
Although some commenters pushed back, suggesting the game was packaged this way so that it could be uniform with other games that are actually on discs, to the original poster's point, it does seem fairly absurd for a product this small to be stored in a plastic box that is so many times its size.
Plastic production and consumption is a big problem for our planet. The material is created out of the same stuff used for motor oil and gasoline, and it causes harm to the environment at every stage of its life cycle.
If you want to reduce the amount of plastic you use in your daily life, you can consider taking such steps as switching to powdered soap and detergent or repurposing empty containers. However, if you want to buy a physical Nintendo Switch game while reducing your overconsumption of plastic, it looks like you may be out of luck.
"I get why practical marketing and literal product placement is a reason, I just don't think it is a good one," the OP wrote, responding to one commenter. "It's sort of ironic that there was a big push to stop boxes for games from being so big, when they were all made out of cardboard."
"Oh man that is tiny! Totally agree that [the packaging] should be smaller!" another commenter agreed.
Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.
Cool Picks
