Eco-friendly Packaging for OSUM Electrical Switches

The old design

Thermocol or EPS is widely used in the electronics and appliance industry to protect goods. Although it has excellent shock absorption properties, it is not great for the environment. Both the variants of the client’s old packaging consisted of 2 moulded thermocol pieces sandwiching the product. This was held together with a paper sleeve which contained the branding. 5 units of the product was then packed into a secondary corrugated cardboard box.

Considerations

The primary function of the package was to protect the product, especially the areas most susceptible to damage - the ceramic components inside, corners and the protruding switch. We needed to reduce the environmental effects of the package by applying one of the strategies for sustainable packaging - rethink, reuse, recycle, renew. We had to do this while keeping costs equal to or lesser than that of the existing packaging. The box needed to have enough surface area to adapt the client’s existing branding and artwork.

Redesign

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• Eco-friendly: Made from fully recyclable cardboard material. 

• Cost-effective: The overall cost of the 5 primary packs and 1 secondary pack stayed the same. Using a single part and material results in fewer operations and steps in the process. By shrinking the size of the primary package, we reduced the overall volumetric weight of a pack of 5, resulting in a smaller and more cost effective secondary package.

• Easy to assemble: An auto-lock bottom made the packaging quicker to assemble. We made the assembly intuitive so there is less room for error.

• Frustration-free opening: No tape used to keep the box locked. It is easy to open the box and take out the product.

• Impact resistant: Successfully protects the most fragile parts of the product - the corners and the protruding switch - when dropped from a height.

• Transit friendly: Restricts horizontal and vertical movement.