Tightly sealed packages can be maddening – and even dangerous – to open. Age and ailments add to the challenge, and seniors aging in place have no one readily available to help. Seniors Guide writer Terri L. Jones provides tips for tackling hard-to-open packaging.
If you’ve been having difficulty opening items from bottles and jars to new products and prescription medications, you may have chalked it up to getting older. Declining grip strength, arthritis, carpal tunnel, Parkinson’s, and similar challenges can certainly play a part in how easy it is to break into product packaging. But it’s not just your age!
Over the past several years, packaging has become more and more impenetrable – to extend products’ shelf life, protect against tampering and theft, and reduce producers’ costs.
In fact, the struggle of opening packaging and the frustration that comes with it is so pervasive these days that it has a name: “wrap rage.” Sometimes the battle becomes so fierce – with people arming themselves with scissors, knives, and boxcutters – that opening something as innocuous as a pack of batteries can even result in injuries. Every year, approximately 6,000 people end up in the hospital after losing a fight with packaging adversaries.
Tackling hard-to-open packaging
These tips, tricks, and gadgets can help you successfully – and safely – open some of the most unyielding jars, bottles, cartons, and clamshells:
Bottle and carton caps you can’t get a grip on
Manufacturers have started making plastic caps on water and soda bottles as well as milk and juice cartons shorter. This not only reduces the plastic used but also the product’s weight, which in turn, lowers shipping costs and even carbon footprint. But a shorter cap also means less area to grip, which makes it difficult to use maximum force to open it, explained Alaster Yoxall, a professor of packaging ergonomics at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom.
TIPS: Wrap a rubber band multiple times around the top part of the cap (above the ring that splits off) to provide more friction between your hand and the smooth cap. Check out this YouTube video for a demonstration.
If your milk carton has a plastic pull ring inside the cap, you can use a spoon to assist: insert the handle inside the ring, all the way to the bowl end of the spoon, then, resting the bowl end against the carton, use the leverage to pull off seal without hurting your fingers.
Other lids screwed on too tight
Everyone – young and old – has had problems wrenching open a jar, like pickles or spaghetti sauce. That’s because of the vacuum sealing process used by manufacturers to keep the food fresh. While minimizing the air in the jar, this seal also presses the lid tightly into the jar, making it extremely difficult to open.
TIPS: There are countless tools on the market for this purpose, from rubber gripper pads and Dycem strips to Otstar multi-jar openers and the 5-in-1 opener, Magic Opener or Jokari opener for smaller tops and pop-top cans. The Jiffy Twist jar opener needs to be mounted under a counter, but it works with a wide range of sizes and can be operated with only one hand.
Here’s another way to get to the food when you don’t have a tool handy. Clasp your hands over the jar and with the heels of your hands, squeeze the lid (not the jar itself) until you hear a pop. That’s the air releasing! Check out this YouTube for a demonstration.
Hard-to-peel seals
The under-cap seals, as on condiment bottles, do the work of preserving the freshness of the product and showing that the ketchup or honey hasn’t been tampered with. However, they can also make it difficult for you to get to the product inside!
TIPS: If you find it difficult to get a grip on the tab with your fingers, use needle-nose pliers (the kind you might use for jewelry making) or surgical clamps. You can ignore the pull tab (they often tear off anyway!) and instead grab around the edge (parallel to the bottle), then roll it off. Check out this YouTube video from an occupational therapist for a demo.
Similarly, the Slice ceramic cutter can help cut through the seal without danger of slicing yourself open in the process.
Related: The 10 Best Gardening Tools for Seniors
Destruction-defying clamshells
Clamshell packaging is arguably the toughest in the hard-to-open packaging category. The hard, thick plastic has been heat-sealed to protect products in shipping and against theft. However, this layer of impregnable protection also creates a barrier to the consumer. To penetrate this practically bulletproof shell, many people are forced to break out their knives, boxcutters, and scissors and end up getting hurt – whether from the tool or the sharp edges of the clamshell itself.
TIPS: Instead of risking your safety with a knife or boxcutter, use an ordinary manual can opener. Turn the product over so it’s facing down and clamp the can opener on one edge. Crank it all the way across, just like you would with a can. You may be able to get the product out at this point. If you can’t, use some scissors to cut through the corner and then continue with the can opener on the next side. Check out this YouTube.
The ceramic-blade Slice tool is another safe option to cut through this rugged plastic.
Don’t let hard-to-open packaging get the best of you. Keeping these tips, tricks, and gadgets in your arsenal will make life a whole lot easier!
Related: Best Gadgets for Seniors Who Live Alone
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