The Clarity team has spent the last month talking trash, as we lend our support to a campaign that is gathering feedback from consumers on the packaging that protects everything they buy.
Trash Talk is an online-driven campaign led by Brighton-based startup, City Girl Network, a social network bringing together young women living in Brighton, Bristol, Edinburgh, Manchester, Berlin and Birmingham.
Inspired by the movements that are raising awareness of the environmental impact that plastics and other packaging materials can have, Trash Talk aims to empower consumers to consider the packaging they really want.
The campaign was launched on 7 May 2018, and has been running throughout the month, with volunteers of all genders and ages collecting the packaging for everything they buy, identifying what they view as unnecessary and sharing ideas for improving future designs.
Trash Talk conversations have been taking place across all social channels under #TrashTalk.
Chris Taylor, Clarity Environmental Commercial Manager, said: “We are really pleased to be supporting this campaign, which is aimed at creating discussions around packaging, and sharing possible and positive solutions for change. Awareness of packaging waste is higher than ever before and consumers are demanding change, but it is a complex issue that needs wide-scale involvement; from decision makers to consumers and manufacturers to retailers. We hope that through the results of this campaign we can empower shoppers to play a part in finding solutions for the future.”
We asked ten members of the Clarity team to get involved and collect their packaging from 7 to 10 May. At the end of the week we then created a visual display with our packaging, highlighting the amount that had been created from our purchases. We also weighed the packaging and discussed the issues we found.
We collected a total of 19.5kg which equates to 1.95kg per person. We felt that around 7 per cent of the total weight of this packaging could be considered as excessive, unnecessary or could have been designed differently. This included trays and plastic covering for fruit and vegetables, plastic windows, larger than necessary plastic and e-commerce packaging, and plastic bottle caps.
It’s not too late to get involved. Take part in the conversations online until World Environment Day on the 5 June 2018. At the end of the campaign, the findings will be shared with a variety of brands and manufacturers, in the form of a white paper, as well as events.
To join the conversation, go to www.citygirlnetwork.com/trashtalk. Keep an eye out on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn accounts to view the conversations or to take part.
