Edizioni Dativo, Milan Polytechnic – Dept. of Design and Communication, and the Istituto Italiano Imballaggio published, presented on the 22 May, during the fair Ipack-Ima, the Ethical Packaging Charter – Shared principles for the mindful design, manufacture and use of packaging”.
Can you imagine a world without packaging? Water without bottles, potato chips without their packet, pealed tomatoes without tins, cold cut meats without their tray, medicinal products without blisters… and also perfumes without their fantastic packaging that reveal glass crystal bottles…Or yet again, a product without its ‘use by’ date? We are so tied to our purchasing habits that we don’t even notice it.
An yet packaging is protagonist and mirror of our living and purchasing habits, irreplaceable tool to make the products that we need to comfortably and conveniently live our daily lives available in space and time.
Over these last year “bad press” has highlighted the negative issues (as an inconvenient and troublesome object to be disposed of, for example), overshadowing the characteristics that make packaging a custodian of our health and safety.
While being the result of a complex process, that sees numerous subjects involved, packaging still does not have a common “platform, that unites points of view, needs, objectives.
Hence the situation presses for a general rethink, to have packaging evolve in respect of the needs of the consumer, the user, the environment, of society as a whole.
The “Ethical Packaging Charter” is born out of these very considerations and wishes to promote a correct packaging culture, bearing witness to attention and respect by the industry to the rights of the citizens/consumers.
The Ethical Packaging Charter is a declaration of principles, a form of appeal to a collective commitment, to relaunch packaging according to a vision that projects its towards a prospective future.
It is a guide written to start an exchange between all stakeholders in the manufacturing and distribution chain and the citizen/consumer.
A project in which all are called upon to participate in time, via the website www.cartaeticadelpackaging.org and the account www.facebook.com/cartaeticadelpackaging
We are packaging….designers, manufacturers, users, distributors, communicators, purchasers… and packaging will be all the better if together we are capable of sharing a project that is based on respect for people.
