Clam-shell packages, and other hard to open packages designed to eliminate shrinkage in retail outlets have been the source of increasing consumer complaints in recent years. Most of them require tools such as scissors or box cutters to open. They are almost impossible to open without tools.

In a recent article, the NY Times reports that every year 6,000 Americans head over to emergency rooms because of injuries related to hard-to-open packages. Since the leading internet retailer Amazon does not have a brick and mortar store front to worry about inventory shrinkage, it has been pushing for easier to open packages, under a ‘frustration-free’ package drive.

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Occasionally, we come across interlocking package designs. This particular design, which is for a medical drug promotion, interlocks two mirror image packages in jig-saw fashion, one for hand sanitizer, and the other for hand moisturizer. Bundling complementary products in interlocking package designs is not new. But is it innovation?

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Two of the most important emerging factors in the package world over the last decade are recyclability and renewability. For many consumers, the difference between the two has not been clear, and continues to blur as new technologies emerge.

Recyclability is what is taking place today with trillions of PET bottles that are produced every year, to pack anything ranging from soft drinks to ketchup. Once these packages are discarded, they end up in the recycle stream, to be reground, and they typically end up as some other product, like a park bench.

A renewable product comes from a renewable resource, such as packaging paper from paper pulp, which naturally comes from trees, which is a renewable resource as long as more is planted than what is taken out.

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We are done developing our logo. The can design was designed in Strata 3D CX 6.1. The texture we applied uses yellow as the main color as we believe in the way nature packs things, and one of the best examples is a banana, playing a pun on our name.

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Welcome to PackageRepublic.com. We hope to become a forum where people who are passionate about packaging will meet. Packages, whether they are just milk cartons or iPod boxes, are surprisingly full of food for thought to many people.

After much work with Ruby on Rails and Typo blog engine, working with WebHostingPad.com, we are finally up. Currently running in development mode, as we have noticed that the production mode was resulting in frequent server errors. The difference is whether the page is loaded from the local cache or reloaded every time, as in the development version. Since we have no traffic yet, we will stick with the development mode, and not worry about additional bandwidth requirements, for traffic that does not exist.

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