OPINION: Overpackaging is the quiet culprit behind the plastic crisis we live in

Breaking the cycle of Russian doll waste.

I have noticed that lately, it takes so long before I get to eat a piece of biscuit.

Opening it feels like dealing with endless Russian dolls. One layer reveals another and then another—a plastic wrapper, a laminated box, a sealed tray, and individual sleeves—each step delaying the moment you actually get to the food. By the time I finally reach the biscuit, I am already holding a small pile of discarded packaging.

It is a simple, ordinary experience. But it points to something larger.

This is overpackaging.

The anatomy of excess

Overpackaging is the practice of using more material than necessary to protect, transport, or sell a product. It is excess built into the design—layers added not out of need but out of convenience, marketing, or habit. Packaging that suggests value but ultimately becomes waste the moment it is opened.

The impact is severe.

Packaging accounts for a significant share of global plastic waste—estimated at around 40 percent. That means nearly half of the plastic problem begins not with the product itself, but with what surrounds it. These materials are used for minutes, sometimes seconds, yet persist in the environment for years.

What makes overpackaging dangerous is how easily it blends into everyday life.

It does not feel excessive when you are opening it. It feels routine. Expected. Invisible. But repetition turns the ordinary into something massive. Every extra wrapper, every unnecessary layer, accumulates—quietly, consistently—until the scale becomes impossible to ignore.

Companies justify it with efficiency and protection. Standardized packaging reduces costs. Extra layers minimize damage. Larger boxes create stronger shelf presence. But these decisions prioritize convenience over consequence. The cost is simply transferred elsewhere—to waste systems, to communities, to the environment.

And the result is a cycle that sustains itself.

Consumers unwrap. Waste accumulates. Companies continue. And the system remains intact.

The path to intervention

Breaking that cycle requires intervention.

Policy makers can impose stricter limits on excessive packaging, ban certain single-use plastics, and require companies to manage the waste they create. These measures shift accountability back to where it begins: at the point of production.

At the same time, companies must rethink design. Reduce layers. Eliminate what is unnecessary. Invest in materials that do not outlive their purpose. The technology exists. The alternatives exist. What remains is the decision to use them.

Because the issue is not abstract.

It is right there, in the act of opening something as simple as a biscuit. The delay, the layers, the waste left behind—they are all signals of a system built on excess.

We are not just unwrapping products.

We are unwrapping a problem, one layer at a time.