On the back of the battery box, there is a sort of impenetrable fortress made of cardboard and plastic, labeled “Abre Fácil/Easy Open”. I’m terrified of packaging that says “easy open”, because easy open packaging doesn’t need to be advertised. The pierced area may be an easy thing for people with long nails, but for me it’s a defeat. I use the tip of a knife, but the “cut” – cardboard torn without style or elegance – looks like garbage. I’m not OCD, that’s not what I know of, but I get very angry at the mess: the package contains 16 batteries and I will have to live with this ugly result for months. Is it difficult to come up with suitable packaging for a product we use often?
- Pedro Pacifico: Wanted: Teenage sweetheart
- Joaquim Ferreira dos Santos: One mistake and you’re right there at the crime scene
The toothbrush comes in exactly the same packaging, but this one, at least, we open it up and throw it away. The brush is sleek and curvy, with surfaces that appear molded for high performance. When I need to choose a new toothbrush, I get lost in the options and remember “Dirty Worlds”, an excellent detective novel by José Lator, in which the protagonist manages to escape from Cuba to the United States, and there he stumbles upon a supermarket shelf of hundreds of toothbrushes, of all kinds and shapes – when he finds one in Havana, if he is lucky. Like him, I also don’t know what to choose or think, except that between scarcity and abundance, there must be a reasonable compromise.
Dirty Worlds was published in Brazil 20 years ago, in the black collection of Editora Records. It’s out of stock, but you can easily purchase it from Virtual Bookshelf; I recommend.
I think there is a clear connection between toothbrush design and sneaker design. The Soul itself moves one by one, full of aerodynamic curves, contrasting colors and promises of performance; The same illusion of efficiency applies to humble tasks, like walking to the bakery or brushing your teeth.
This new brush of mine, which I bought with the batteries, is black and purple and has “charcoal minerals,” whatever that may be, embedded in the bristles. It’s manufactured in Ireland, bottled in Mexico and imported by a company in nearby Ceropedica. It has more mileage than a lot of people.
- Jose Eduardo Agualosa: African Mamdani
The batteries are manufactured in China and I assume they were packed there, because there is no other information about it. The now-exploded label, written in three languages, indicates only that 16 companies from various Latin American countries imported it. There is a message exclusive to Brazil: “After use, the cells and/or batteries must be handed over to the authorized commercial establishment or technical assistance network.”
This Jabuticaba appears because, in 2008, it was decided that consumers must return used batteries to the establishments that sell them, and that they are obliged to send them for recycling. Conama Resolution No. 401/2008 states: “With regard to advertising materials and packaging of cells and batteries, whether manufactured in the country or imported, symbols indicating the appropriate destination and warnings regarding risks to human health and the environment, as well as the need to send them, after use, to distributors or to the authorized technical assistance network, must appear clearly and visually and in the Portuguese language.”
Despite the bureaucratic spirit, the idea behind the rule is good. It’s unfortunate that our environmental conscience still works like batteries: it only holds a charge until it’s time to print the label. Then he dies and is wasted. Common, of course.
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