A huge number of people have injured themselves trying desperately to get into badly wrapped Christmas presents, using a range of kitchen appliances to break into them such as knives and forks
Everybody knows that there is nothing more painful than getting a papercut. Unfortunately, Christmas is coming up and a study has shown that an estimated 12m adults have experienced injuries trying to open badly wrapped presents.
A poll of 2,000 adults found nearly half (47%) have encountered some kind of injury from having no choice but to use knives and forks to break in to their gifts. On top of this hocking statistic, nearly three-quarters (74%) of gift-receivers admit to getting frustrated trying to open their prezzies and 64% says it dampens their festive mood.
The same percentage of 64% will waste up to two hours fiddling with foil seals and trying to get into tightly wrapped plastic or stubborn cardboard boxes excessively taped up and 26% admitted to damaging the contents while struggling.
With minor cuts (40%) (presumably from the paper), scratches (32%) and bruises (10%) among some of the injuries sustained.
Packaging specialist Lydia Butler from DS Smith, which commissioned the research, said: ” Christmas is a time for joy, not frustration, nobody wants to spend Christmas wrestling with tricky packaging and possibly injuring themselves in the process.
“Hard to open packaging is affecting millions of people with frustrations and injuries.”
The research also found 27 per cent who have had issues, have even ended up in A&E as a result of an injury sustained while attempting to open packaging.
A further 10% avoid buying certain products as gifts because they know the packaging will be too hard to open, while almost a third (32%) find excessive packaging particularly irritating at Christmas.
Of those who have damaged items they were trying to open at Christmas, 34% were then unable to give the product as a gift. Nearly nine in 10 (88%) feel packaging should be easy to open, particularly for those with dexterity issues, according to the OnePoll.com figures.
But 14% who have struggled to open packaging have simply returned an item after buying it, because they couldn’t get into it.
It was also found almost half (45%) sometimes suffer with hand weakness or pain as a result of arthritis (25%), an injury (19%) or carpal tunnel syndrome (11%). And of those, 30 per cent say they regularly need assistance opening packaging as a result.
Pippa Stacey, an award-winning writer with a chronic illness affecting her movements, said: “I enjoy Christmas time, but too often when online shopping, parcels arrive that are hard or sometimes even impossible for me to open.
“It’s frustrating when I know from my own business that it doesn’t have to be that way. I want to see more companies using the solutions that already exist to make packaging inclusive for everyone.”
Packaging company DS Smith’s spokesperson added: “For people with more limited hand mobility, packaging that’s difficult to open can be a significant barrier to independence – these struggles are often overlooked but are very real.
“We think more can be done to take an inclusive approach to designing packaging. Packaging needs to be suitable for everyone, no matter your age, health condition or level of ability.”
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