Squared-Off Milk Jugs -- For Education

What if someone took one of the most commonplace objects in education -- pencils, say, or reams of paper -- and found a way to produce and distribute them at much greater cost and energy use?  That's what's apparently just happened in the grocery store industry, where a new kind of squared-off gallon milk jug (pictured) is saving production, storage, and distribution costs -- even if it's not so easy to use at first (NYT).  The closest thing I can think of in education might be open-source software, which lowers purchase and licensing costs for basic software.  Whiteboards seem like they're not much less expensive than blackboards.  Ditto for newfangled artificial turf.  But maybe I'm missing something. Ideas?