Oh, Bother: Pooh Loses His Package

Disney's new environmentally friendly toy packaging puts Pooh in the 'saddle'

- by Bob McLain, December 1, 2010

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Toy packaging is not my favorite subject. Probably not yours, either. It's not my favorite anything: every year on Christmas morning I compare two piles: the small one of toys, the colossal one of the packaging in which they came.

Did Santa really bring so little?

If you're in the market this year for a 12-inch plush Winnie the Pooh, you're in luck! Its packaging has shrunk by 80%. No longer does Pooh sit in a cardboard box that you'll just throw away; now he comes encumbered only with a small 'saddle' to keep him upright on the shelf and a tag attached to his paw.

Who's responsible?

Clean Agency, a 'sustainability consulting firm' engaged by Disney to redesign the packaging on some of its consumer products to 'create less waste, cut costs, and reduce carbon emissions'. The new Pooh packaging uses 8 metric tons less cardboard on an annual basis than the original design.

Those tons, of course, would have been tossed in the garbage by consumers. And getting rid of that garbage would have meant carting it to landfills where its disposal would have created carbon dioxide, adding to the 'greenhouse effect'.

A regular litany of evil avoided by taking Pooh out of a box and putting him in a saddle.

Disney was so happy with the results that it awarded Clean Agency its Consumer Products' 2010 Quality Product Award for Sustainability.

How does Pooh feel about it? Of that, I'm not so sure. Check out the picture in the sidebar. Pooh, in his original packaging, smiles broadly; Pooh, divested of 80% of his precious packaging, seems rather morose. Box envy?

Eeyore, of course, saw it coming all along...

Don't stop there! More Tidings Await...