The Secret Of The Triumph Of Poly Bags Is Their Versatility In The Journey Of Consumerism

The definition of success is complete market penetration to the extent that the product becomes inseparable from the lives of consumers. That may be a basic tenet, but it is one that rings true with the application of the technology that led to the existence of poly bags in our lives.

We take them for granted, so much so that Mrs. Polyethylene would have good grounds for divorce on grounds of emotional abandonment. Physical neglect she could not complain of, as we handle it every day. A huge 80 million tons are produced globally on an annual basis and most of this surrounds the food we eat. What an outcome from a scientific experiment that apparently went wrong.

It surrounds us in places we want it to be and in places we don't want it to be. In the home, we use it for a multitude of purposes, to wrap food and protect items. The down side is that we see its dusty faded colors flagging up the neglected corners of the areas we live in. Forget the negative; remember what your next glossy magazine order is delivered in.

A lesson to teach the younger generation is not just the journey of food from the farm to the plate, but the journey of the packaging from the factory to the dump. Plastic preserves, protects and then delivers to the home and then back to the tip. That is some achievement for the humble poly bag.

It's not just the processed foods that are handled in this way. There are a multitude of bags to protect all sorts of food. Even the humble potato needs a little plastic bag at the produce section of the grocery store, so it's hard to get back to basics.

The stage in the process where the consumer really engages in plastic packaging is the checkout. They're ripped like page after page from the book of plastic, to transport a trolley of essentials and delights for the family's week ahead. Our pangs of guilt at chomping up this plastic have not been lost upon the stores; they understand our guilt and encourage less use through the employment of durable reusable bags. They gain, the planet gains, we gain. You can't complain.

It begs the question, what we would do if we never had the store bags to store our own stuff in. We feel good as we're recycling. It might be for the protection of items, the carrying of lunch or the bagging of rubbish, but we do re-use these bags a lot. The real guilt should start when the small bag is thrown straight into the waste carrier: Now that is a real waste.

Poly bags are not biodegradable unless you have exposure to a whole lot of sunshine over a couple of centuries. That makes us think about where the 80 million tons a year is going. We need to save resources, but consider the flip side: Plastic packaging has saved, through longer shelf lives and lower damage to goods, also providing a lightweight alternative to other packaging, hence reduced transport costs. This is another side to the debate about the success of poly bags and polyethylene in the journey of consumerism.

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