Pretty much everyone has an experience with ordering products online, on the phone, or having it shipped them you from the store if retailers are out of inventory. For the most part it’s quite convenient — all you have to do sit around in excitement waiting for the mailman to show. It’s the opening the package part that can get frustrating. After all the waiting, the last thing you need is scratching the edges of the tape to get a strip open, only for the tape to rip off to the sides. If you want to recycle the box, ripping the tape off the paper surface could damage its recycling abilities. Lastly, piercing scissors or keys into the middle of the tape to open can also be nerve-wracking if the item inside is fabric or glass.
Thankfully, Quirky has done it again with the Rip Cord, a simple solution to packing tape, we wonder why it never existed before. With the Rip Cord tape, all the user has to do is locate the thin purple strip at the middle and pull it apart to tear the tape in two. A specific tape dispenser also comes with the product to ensure the tape receives a tab at the edge so users can easily remove the strip. However you want to deal with the purple string later on is your choice, but this also eliminates the big bundle of messed up sticky tape after you open large packages.
Like all Quirky items which receive their product designs from users at home, the Rip Cord was designed by Jay Address who was looking for “an easy way to break down boxes for reuse and recycling.” To date, 8,853 Quirky community members have influenced the product, meaning such large response could encourage mass production in the near future.
To have a say in whether the Rip Cord makes it to your nearest store shelves, you can visit the official product page and vote on whether you’d want to buy this item and how much you prefer to pay. Of course, if you have any innovative changes you’d like to drop two cents about, now is the time to do so before the item gets lost in the production process. What price tag do you think is appropriate for the Rip Cord? We’re guessing somewhere between $5 to $8 seems about right. If the product gets enough traffic, we hope it could bring a whole new standard to packing tapes for all package shipments.
