The Unpackit crew will be in Kaitaia on Tuesday 19th April, encouraging people to have their say in the 2011 Unpackit Packaging Awards.
The crew will be at Centennial Park from 11am to 2pm, with a display featuring the 16 finalists in the 2011 people’s choice awards for the best and worst packaging in New Zealand.
They will also perform skits from their roadshow which includes chip-pack juggling, wrapper rapping and bananas on stilts.
People will be able to vote for their pick of the “Best” and “Worst” finalists at the skate park.
Votes can also be made online at www.unpackit.org. More than 4,000 votes have been received since the shortlists were announced on 25th March.
Roadshow organiser Ivy Willmott said the idea behind the Unpackit roadshow is to make people laugh as well as making them think.
“It’s a serious message, but it doesn’t need to be boring,” she said.
The roadshow has been touring the country since Monday 28th March, when the first show was performed in Wanaka.
Awards organiser Sophie Ward said the 16 finalists had been narrowed down from over 100 nominations.
“We were surprised to find that nearly all of the eight “Best” finalists are from small to medium-sized New Zealand businesses, with the exception of Speight’s.
“For most of the Best finalists, the packaging is part of the brand they’re creating and they’ve put a lot of thought into it.
“Some of the best packaging is made from recycled materials, or from a waste stream – such as Potatopak which is made from starch waste from potato chip manufacturers.”
All of the “Best” finalists are fully recyclable and/or home compostable. In contrast, all of the eight “Worst” finalists are destined to end up in the rubbish bin, because they can’t be recycled or composted.
“All of the eight “Worst” finalists use more packaging than they need to, most of them are what I would call excessive,” said Ms Ward.
“I don’t know whose bright idea it is to individually wrap Sunsweet’s prunes, but I haven’t met one person on the roadtrip so far who doesn’t think that it is absolutely ridiculous.”
Ms Ward said the eight “Worst” finalists had also failed to label their plastics with an identifying number in a triangle (with the exception of Cadbury Drinking Chocolate who did label their plastic lid). As a result, the plastics couldn’t be properly recycled.
Ms Ward said she encouraged everyone to come down and enjoy the roadshow. “Anyone who can’t make it, can view the finalists and vote by going to the Unpackit website www.unpackit.org
The Unpackit Roadshow of Joy will be on tour until April 21st. For a full itinerary and roadshow blogs, please go to www.unpackit.org
The winners of the awards will be announced May 6th
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