ABSTRACT
From the emphasis on materials in the previous chapter, we now turn to people. It is worth noting again that to divide our attention to packaging re-use in this way runs counter to the spirit of this book, which tries to emphasize the interaction of all the elements of re-use, to understand the subject in a way that can encompass matter and person, thing and user, object and human. It is the relationships between these things that hold the key to understanding the subject. However, dividing our attention between things and people makes it easier to see the ‘anatomy’ of packaging re-use, even if this division does not reflect its lived reality. It makes it easier to interpret existing packaging designs and how they may be re-used by different types of people and therefore to facilitate the design of packaging that is more likely to be re-used, but this division is meant to be taken in the integrating spirit of design.
