Disappearing Package Design Creates No Waste…It Just Washes Away

Every single year, Americans alone put over 140,000,000,000 pounds of packaging in the trash. Packaging waste makes up a lot of what we throw away, and when you think about how much packaging you toss in the garbage can each day, it might surprise you. Wouldn’t it be nice if a package design was created that would just disappear? The best option for the environment would be if the packages that our things are stored in just dissolve into thin air, like magic.

It makes sense when you think about it. Instead of trying to create a package design that is nicer to the environment, why not just get rid of it altogether? That is what design student Aaron Mickelson thought when he first got the idea for the “Disappearing Package.”

In his product package designs, the packaging itself is incorporated into the product. When the product is used, the package gets “used up” with it. In many cases, the branding is printed directly on the product in soluble ink. In the case of the trash bags below, the entire roll of trash bags is wrapped in one of the bags itself, so when you get to the last bag on the roll, you use the package, if that make sense.

Imagine what it would be like to use a bar of soap in the shower, and the box that the soap came in dissolves in the warm water right there during your shower. In the Tide laundry detergent example below, you would just tear off the PODs one at a time, and when you use the last one, they would all simply be gone. There’s no cardboard box or plastic jug to dispose of afterwards. Think about how much waste we could eliminate if this became the future of package design. You can learn more about these ideas on the Disappearing Package.

The Disappearing Package Design

Via: [Design Taxi] [Packaging of the World]