"Waste of Packaging" Finalist: Plastic Egg Carton

Noam Ross' entry shows that sometimes making things "better" can make them worse. The egg carton he entered tried to update the packaging by moving from the traditional paper packaging to a new sytle of plastic carton. According to Noam, "An extra flap on the carton adds more than 50% to the packaging. The use of plastic is more energy-intensive than traditional egg carton materials, and requires the addition of a paper label. Since the package is a mix of paper and plastic, it is unlikely that both will end up being recycled." Noam suggests switching back from plastic to paper cartons. Not only is paper more easily recycled, "When printed with soy inks, they are 100% biodegradable, and make excellent trays for starting garden seeds." Check out the picture after the jump.