Oscar Wilde famously said that “Nothing succeeds like excess”, and the turn of our century certainly seemed to bear that out.
But the Intelligence Group, reports Brand Week, has found that ‘excess’ is becoming a dirty word, and leading to changes in purchasing behaviour:
“45% of trendsetters and 14% of mainstream consumers have ‘cut down on bottled water purchases’ in the past six months, while 49% and 16% respectively have ‘cut down on use of plastic bags’ during the same period” they state.
This public sentiment is being reinforced by regulations against plastic bags and bottled water – particularly on the West Coast of the US. But plastic bags are also being banned in cities in India, China and Africa, and business are voluntarily ceasing to use them (or charging for them) in countries in Europe.
So, products are now being defined as waste (and pollution).
Which brings us back to the notion of “precycling”. Consumers and legislators are expecting that a product has no end of life – because they want it to continue to be feedstock for a further process. They are “borrowing” the service, and feel good about participating in recycling programmes (witness the miles people are willing to drive in an SUV in order to recycle a few glass and plastic bottles).
Which means that businesses that guarantee the recovery and recycling of their product can avoid consumers ‘precycling’ them by not buying them at all. As well as legislators jumping onto the bandwagon and nailing the coffin…
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