In the last two weeks I got three packaging that made me thing the way products are packaged, and how with a little bit of care, industries could make lower impact on environment

The Facts

HP printer cartridge

Today I bought a cartridge for my HP printer, and I was positively surprised by how much HP cares about recycling.

The package is all cardboard, plus a thin aluminum wrap around the cartridge itself, and enclosed in the box there is a prepaid and self-addressed envelope where I can put the old cartridge in and sent it back to HP for recycling.

Microsoft Points prepaid card

Then I received an XBox Live points card: it's a plastic, credit card sized, enclosed in a plastic box like the ones used for DVDs, with a plastic cover, and all wrapped in thin plastic foil. All this plastic for just a 25 digit code.

Chinese Brand SD

Still, not as bad as the packaging for a chinese brand SD card I bought last week: a big thick plastic enclosure with a strange screw cover.

More plastic packaging than the Dell 27" Display I bought last month.

Who is the winner?

Obviously HP is the winner: only cardboard and a pre-paid envelope to make you want to recycle the used cartridge.

Then, far behind is Microsoft: a lot of plastic (even if it seems to be recyclable plastic) just for a digit. Couldn't have they just sold the card with the printed digits in small warp? Like all the mobile phone prepaid card? This would reduce production costs, recycling costs and environmental costs.

And far far far behind, is the chinese brand SD card, with no recyclable packaging. Big FAIL!!