South African retailer Woolworths has called off a trial that introduced colourful plastic egg boxes, following backlash from customers on social media platforms.
The trial-run egg boxes were an attempt to make the containers more reusable in a ‘playful’ manner. The boxes had been launched in three brightly coloured plastic containers called ‘Eggplay’.
But the backlash online was immediate, with users taking to Twitter and Facebook to complain about the product, which they said was an unnecessary as wasteful addition, considering the biodegradable nature of the recycled cartons eggs are currently sold in.
Many users criticised Woolworths for using plastic – even though the company pointed out that the boxes were designed to be re-used, could be recycled and returned to stores to be donated to other people.
One user’s post went viral with thousands of shares stirring a collective conversation about the new Eggplay boxes. Meaghan Essel wrote the post on 10 January after seeing the product on the shelf.
“The year is 2050, you’re snorkeling some place exotic where the water is clear and blue and you take so many underwater selfies for Instagram that your iPhone may never recover.”
“And then you spot it, in all its beauty. You can’t believe you’ve come all this way and it’s right there in front of you.”
“Incredible. Breathtaking.”
“The WOOLWORTHS SA eggs you bought in the hot pink container in 2017 is floating around in front of you.”
“And there’s a few fish too.”
“There’s estimated to be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. Why is Woolworths selling eggs in plastic containers to be trendy and cute? Environmental irresponsibility is not cute.”
“Cardboard is biodegradable.”
“Cardboard is good.”
“Cardboard is better.”
“Even if lime green egg containers are used from recyclable materials, it doesn’t make it acceptable.
Stop.”“Disclaimer: I am not a fancy plastics professor. But I am not an idiot either.”
On Friday, the retailer responded, saying that the trial was called off, and the product would be discontinued and pulled off shelves within a week.
“Your feedback is very important to Woolworths and we’ve listened to all comments received regarding the Eggyplay toy egg box.”
“The Eggyplay toy egg box is a trial. Based on your feedback, we’ve decided to end the trial as soon as we can. The boxes should be out of stores in 5 to 7 days.”
“Any remaining plastic egg boxes (you can return them to our stores) will be donated through our MySchool programme.”
“Woolies remains committed to designing recyclable packaging and to continue to listen to you, our customers.”
It seems the power of social media can be used to harness good.
In this case, a concept that was signed off internally faced the scrutiny of people on a public platform and South Africans all agreed that the concept could not work in our country.
The majority of our communities do not recycle to begin with… and even though there may have been a good idea behind the product, the plastic containers would ultimately find their end in adding to our already over-flowing landfills.
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Not as nonsensical as some think. They are a trial of a concept already used elsewhere. Cardboard KILLS TREES all pretend tree huggers should wake up and realize that although “recyclable” we then use more classic egg boxes more boxes means more need for material more material means more paper and so on. The concept behind the trial is one of two things 1-when buying eggs you dropped off the old container for a new one keeping only a few in circulation 2-you can buy new eggs to fill your old container thus only ever using one to two containers. Woolworths customers are more eco friendly and environmentally conscious thus far more likely to follow the usage ideas than other customers. People all see plastic and howl at the moon but do they realize that those containers are repurposing the plastic already in our world not making more so how about go crusading against coke and Pepsi and the packaging we get our yummy free range chicken in. fools now that they won’t make the egg boxes we can enjoy more bottles bags and tupperwares in our “beloved” ocean in 2050. They all think they are so conscious but really we are all unconscious unaware ill informed and have no excuse because in today’s age and access to tech all you had to do was a trendy bit of research and see that REPURPOSING is an excellent way to slow new plastic production and stop killing trees. So the question is are woolies the fools for looking into how best to slow production and repurpose or are we?
Trees can be replanted in already existing forestry areas…. I do not see these plastic waste SAVING and RESTORING natural forests! The notion that the plastic containers will be used over and over again is wishful. Just look at our plastic bags…. hardly anyone recycles them…. and eventually it lands in the landfills and oceans.
This is another example of slacktivism at it’s finest. Hypocritical people complaining about something that isn’t actually an issue just because they want to appear “environmentally conscious” to their Facebook friends.
These containers weren’t a replacement for traditional egg cartons, they were an alternative charged at a higher price because you were paying for the “fancy” container. If you have no use for the container, don’t but them.
If you’ve ever purchased bottled water, you’re not allowed to complain.
Just because something is recyclable, doesn’t make it responsible to manufacture: the amount of water, energy, machinery and manpower it takes to manufacture plastic eggboxes (especially when their cardboard counterparts more than sufficed), is simply wasteful and an unnecessary use of resources.
Furthermore, recycling too takes resources: water, manpower, petrol of the trucks that transport it to and from the depot, water, electricity, and then more of all these to remake the old recycled plastic into something else. Recycling is not enough: we can’t take the attitude that just because we are recycling we are doing enough. Instead, we all need to consider wastefulness and unnecessary consumerism (buying a fun plastic eggbox and justifying it to ourselves by saying “but it’s recyclable” is unnecessary consumerism).