Design for Convenience: Get Rid of Shrink Wrap

Shrink wrap can't cut you. It has no sharp edges.

"Wrap rage, also called package rage, is the common name for heightened levels of anger and frustration resulting from the inability to open hard-to-removepackaging, particularly some heat sealed plastic blister packs and clamshells. Consumers suffer thousands of injuries per year, such as cut fingers and sprained wrists, from tools used to open packages and from the packaging itself."

"Consumers sometimes use potentially unsafe tools such as razor blades, boxcutters, snips and ice picks in their attempts to open packages.^[2] In the Yours survey, 71% of respondents said they had been injured while trying to open food packaging. The most common injury respondents had from trying to open packaging was "a cut finger, followed by cut hand, sprained wrist, bruised hand and strained shoulder muscle."^[10] According to a British study, over 60,000 people receive hospital treatment each year due to injuries from opening food packaging.^[5] The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that attempts to open packaging caused about 6,500 emergency room visits in the U.S. in 2004.^[13] A 2009 study conducted by the Institute for Good Medicine found that 17 percent of adults over the age of 21 were either injured at least once or know of someone who was injured while opening a holiday or birthday gift.^[14]"

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrap_rage}

Do you mean that hard clear plastic that encases everything and requires specialized tools and kevlar body armor to safely pry and cut open?

I am surprised there is not a class action lawsuit from someone that has severed their radial artery opening one of these packages.

I say we track down the inventors of this scourge and encase them in the very same plastic and give them a plastic McDonald's spork to cut themselves free with!

Who's with me?

Here here!!! Mob rule!!

yes that thing.. I always called it shrink wrap..looks like its plastic-clam shells..

See my fundamental problem that I am driving with these posts is that though thousands seem to have complained, lived with it etc etc.. there is no indication that its going to be addressed or eliminated

First, you'd have to kill all the attorneys.

Okay, that sounds good. Then next...?

_{/By the way, I know a guy who knows a guy. IYKWIMAITYD.}

I hadn't gotten that far. It's a large task. Kinda like wiping out vermin, they just keep coming.

Cure...

Ah, the finger guillotine! Yes, after the fingers are gone you will not be able to even open things with wrapped in the finest tissue.

Ahhhh BUBBLE BOY strikes again! LOL

Bubble wrap/packaging does not seem to be an attorney issue, but a consumer issue.

I doubt the manufactures go to great lengths of packaging just to frustrate the buyer, it is the result of trying to solve a problem.

The first of course is pilferage, far too many consumers feel they are entitled to a product simply because they want it. Second of course is sanitary/tampering. The Advil incident from the '80's being a prime concern.

Attorneys and judges need to be held accountable for the plethora of warning stickers on products advising of all hazards both real and imagined. But again, the consumer is the driver as they are the ones using products in an unsafe or improper manner.