At What Cost?: Design Mysteries Series
Is there a direct correlation between the cost of manufacturing and selling and the cost to the earth?
Is it * inversely proportional?. COM + S > CTE
Smucker’s Grape Jelly Squeeze Bottle
As I squeezed the “new” grape jelly bottle the jelly oozed onto toast, plop, plop, like some bad movie special effect. Who thinks up these ideas? Why is this better than a glass bottle that I scoop the jelly out of? Why do we as a society think this is a “good” idea? As we continue to struggle with just how we will save ourselves from ourselves destroying earth, who in their right mind thinks that we need to “improve” how jelly comes out of a jar. This “new” way of dispensing mayonnaise, jelly and sundry other semi solids is amazingly stupid in its creation of yet another useless “product.” I’m sure Smucker’s is saving money by eliminating the cost of the traditional glass bottle and metal top, but what is the cost to the earth? Is the crappy plastic squeeze bottle really that much cheaper? I’m not sure, but I’m sure of a number of things about the “new” bottle: I can’t see how much is left in the “new” bottle: I can’t even see where the jelly is in the bottle. I don’t know how much is coming out until it plops on the bread. And the very act of the oozing is disgusting. Of course I know that Smucker’s tested it with 6 year old and they loved it. Six year olds love everything gooey and disgusting that’s why they are 6 years old.
Maybe we need to invent some new math to describe the insanity of design? The cost to the earth of this ‘improved” bottle is definitely much greater than the benefits we derive from it.
(*Related so that as one becomes larger the other becomes smaller)
#DesignMysteriesSeries [#8]
Design Mysteries Series
Bruce Hannah 2015©
