I was in the produce section of a local supermarket nearly driven to total frustration all because of a clear single-use plastic bag I couldn’t get open. One lady passing by stopped and said, “Give it up man” before continuing on. More determined than ever, I finally got it open, dropped in three of the biggest red onions I wanted – which promptly split open the bottom and fell to the floor. Disgusted, I picked up the onions, placed them back in the bin and flung that useless bag to the floor.
Usually Sheila is with me so I hand the bag to her for opening. Over the years in desperation, I have asked women for help and they were always obliging. Last year in a grocery store when the challenge was beyond reach, I told one of the stock-fillers about my beef. I was mesmerized by his size, towering over me as if I had shrunk and with shoulders wider than a football linebacker’s as well. He took the bag, wetted his fat fingers with his pulpy tongue and leaned over and passed it back with a gleamy grin that lit up the aisle. I don’t have many outlawed rules but one is never to lick my fingers in order to open a plastic bag or anything else.
I took a survey over a few weeks and found most people had difficulty opening produce bags. I decided to google the problem for a practical solution. There were more than a few; one was to wet your fingers in with the water spray that kept vegetables fresh or bring a damp wipe-off with you. Another suggested to press your fingers against the flesh of your arm until warm.
Footnote: A week later I was confronted with the same dilemma of opening a plastic bag! This time I headed to the produce bin, wet my fingers with the spray and presto, the bag opened like magic. I was so excited! Then I spotted a young woman struggling with her plastic bag. I went over and explained my idea. She tried it and was excited too.
Then there is “wrap rage”, with solid plastic packaging and I have it big-time. It’s the common name for heightened levels of anger and frustration resulting from the inability to open packaging, particularly clamshell (two halves joined by a hinge) and or heat-sealed blister packs (pre-formed for small goods). Opening clamshell packaging makes people say, “It is better to give than receive.” I was trying to open a package of egg rolls, first with a kitchen knife, then a slotted screwdriver – my ire rising like a hot-air balloon. Sheila finally took it from me, examined it all over, pushed on it with her thumb here and there and straightforwardly opened it. What would I ever do without her?
Survey after survey found that virtually all people over 50 found the packaging hard to open, while 97 percent remarked “too much excess packaging”. The Cox School of Business showed 80 percent of households “expressed anger or outright rage” with plastic packaging. They often went at it with scissors, utility knives or tin-snips. A few times I got the tin-snips out. The curved ones work better. Another survey saw 71 percent of respondents had been injured with “a cut finger, followed by a cut hand, sprained wrist, bruised hand and strained shoulder muscle”.
Naturally a list of warnings followed: If you must use a knife — cut away from your body, use scissors with blunt tips, wear protective gloves, avoid opening tough-to-open packages in a crowd and don’t use legs to keep the product stable. What would be better!
Consumer’s have complained about plastic packaging for years, but manufacturers are not eager to change. The chemicals that make plastics so versatile are the same ones that might harm people and the environment. Also, plastic production and disposal contribute to an array of environmental problems. For example: The chemicals added to plastics are absorbed by human bodies and have potential health effects, plastic debris can injure or poison wildlife, floating plastic waste survive for thousands of years in water disrupting habitats, plastic buried in landfills can leach harmful chemicals into groundwater.
Since four percent of world’s oil is used to make plastics and a similar amount consumed in the process, all that combined with the adverse effects on health and the environment, I would double-down on a petition for an alternative to plastics, even if costlier.
