Giving out samples is a surefire way for a company to get consumers to actually go out and BUY the product after they have tried it and see how awesome that product is firsthand. It's great for their bottom line so you know companies are not about to stop offering FREEBIES.
Since couponers and frugal folks love samples I am not going to garner any love from them when I say that samples are bad for our world and we shouldn't send for them.
All products for sale in our world need some sort of packaging to convey that product to the buyer. Packaging is a necessary evil. But samples by their definition are usually teeny tiny amounts of a product. And that small amount of product needs packaging...almost as much if not the same amount of packaging as a regular size of the product. Add up all that packaging for every sample and you have a mountain of wrappers & containers that need to be THROWN AWAY after the sample gets to it's destination and is used up.
All this extra TRASH that is generated for a company to get their product out into the consumers hands is not helping our environment. In fact, depending on what the company is using in it's packaging and the amount, it is harming our natural world. And it's not at all healthy for our planet to make MORE GARBAGE than is necessary.
Companies aren't able to NOT generate packaging and thus, trash at this point.
But there are ways that companies can be a tad more ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE when conceiving and producing Product Samples and it's Packaging.
Like....
Develop RECYCLABLE PACKAGING for Samples.
I've been receiving samples of various Kashi brand items this year. Every single sample that has arrived, I have been able to compost the packaging. It's all cardboard or other paper product, no plastic! Some family member will enjoy the yummy sample and then the box gets torn up and put into the compost bin.
There have been lots of other brands of samples that were NOT so environmentally friendly(aka EF) this year.
The Purex 3-in-1 Sheets came in a paperboard container but the actual product was not EF. The 'cloth' that the detergent/softener product was inpregnated in, that was leftover after the product was used up. This 'cloth' was just another piece of plastic TRASH that needed to be disposed of. It couldn't be recycled or composted. If Purex could come up with a way to NOT generate trash with this 3-in-1 Sheet Product I would feel a whole lot better about using it in the future.
The other Point I want to mention is the AMOUNT OF PACKAGING a company uses when it sends out samples of products. Don't overdo what needs to be thrown out when designing the packaging for a product.
Here's a perfect example of a very Environmentally Unfriendly package that I received a couple of months ago....
I loved receiving this Proctor & Gamble product sample. #1 son uses this hair product on ocassion so it's something we can use and will.
The packaging was some sort of foil that I might actually be able to recycle once I use the product. Not sure as I haven't checked that yet but there is hope.
The problem was what else they included in this package....
The accompanying fold-out full color non-soy ink printed pamphlet was over 3 feet long.
Lots.
Of.
Wasted.
Material.
Not much in the way of actual information about the product, just some very nice photographs.
BTW-not even a coupon in all that.
This sample also included this....
Another full color non-soy ink printed smaller pamphlet for a Tide product(at least with a coupon!lol).
Now don't you think they could have reduced the amount of paper used in this sample packaging and put both products info/advertising blurbs on 1 two-fold sheet...one product on each side of it?
When I think of all the unnecessary trees that were wasted to produce all this unnecessary advertising I get sad. And it makes me not want to buy these products anymore.
I hope P&G sees this post. Better yet, I am going to go send them a snail mail on how I feel about their wasteful packaging practices.
Sluggy
I hadn't actually thought about it before in terms of samples - excellent point!!!! I recycle all the cardboard, but you're right about the plastic and printed materials being overkill.
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