This troll must be trolling.
A Redditor in October shared a photo in r/EgregiousPackaging, showing a minuscule figurine for sale in one of those impossible-to-open plastic clamshells that might as well be welded shut. The container was about 10 times the size of the toy.
"I mean…I have no words," the poster wrote.
Retail stores are a massive source of plastic waste, and e-commerce is particularly damaging.
"The biggest market and utilization of plastics is in packaging, specifically due to single-use containers," Retail Dive reported in 2019, adding that 79% of plastic ended up in landfills or the environment and that packaging accounted for nearly half of all plastic waste.
E-commerce and grocery stores are a big part of the problem, but shipping — rather than wasteful packaging or even the products themselves — is often characterized as the main issue.
Plastic is perhaps the most abominable material known to humans because of its ubiquity and everlastingness. Even after it breaks down in the environment, it can remain for centuries.
Microplastics are harming the health of people and animals, "alter[ing] habitats and natural processes, reducing ecosystems' ability to adapt to climate change, directly affecting millions of people's livelihoods, food production capabilities and social well-being," according to the United Nations Environment Programme.
The "failed concept" of recycling doesn't help either. Most plastics aren't truly recyclable, and even then, the percentage of plastic Americans recycled declined from 9.5% in 2014 to 5-6% in 2021.
One user argued that the packaging was likely an anti-theft measure, but whether or not that was true, it's harmful all the same.
"It's a piece of plastic wrapped in plastic," one commenter said. "No point to it at all. Capitalism has been selling us different combinations of dyes, plastics and sugars since the early 80s through the power of sheer marketing."
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