Some companies got on the "Try Us and Spend Less" bandwagon a while back by lowering prices, but the lowered prices came with a price- less food in the container. Each week I passed the smaller boxes sitting on the shelf with fancy, eye catching banners of how wonderful they were at a new lower price. Meanwhile, the little bottom corner would show you how much less you were getting. Then a new angle, less of container equals less waste! That's right, you pay less, get less and waste less. Huh? Yes, there was even a very short lived ad campaign stating how the smaller container took up less room at the landfill! But, if I recycle the container, why would it matter? Wouldn't I want to recycle the larger container?
If it were a perfect world, we'd all recycle because there would be an easier way to determine what can go into the recycle container. Don't make me hunt all over the place for the arrowed triangle and try to read the number to see if the number matches what my city will recycle. It's not a perfect world and people are going to buy what they like and it doesn't matter how neat-o the container is. Unfortunately, signage big enough to tell me if the container can be recycled would get in the way of all the fancy, schmancy stuff companies already put on their container. The container that ends up in the landfill because I got tired of looking all over the thing to see if it could go in the recycle bin.
