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It’s In The Bag

Interesting information and unusual facts about the wonderful world of plastic bags

In The Zip Lock Bag – in Industry -1

• Plastic is the world’s number one packaging material and industry has tens of thousands of applications for it. Plastic is used to cover our food and bottle our drinks, coffee is drunk from Styrofoam® cups, clothes are manufactured from man-made fibers like nylon, polyester, and rayon, and consumers use plastic in the form of credit cards to buy all of these and more. Whether we realize it or not, we all use plastic hundreds of times every day.
• World demand for plastics has never been higher and demand will remain strong for many years to come because plastic continues to be the most cost effective, versatile, safe and hygienic packaging material available for hundreds of industrial and commercial uses.
• Plastic container demand is forecast to exceed 165 billion units in 2008, which will require over 14 billion pounds of resin as plastics continue to supplant competitive paperboard, metal and glass packaging across a broad range of applications. Main uses will be bottles and jars; pails; tubs, cups and bowls; trays; cans; egg cartons; and squeeze tubes.
• Plastic film demand in the U.S. will increase 2.7 percent per annum to 15 billion pounds in 2008. Film advances will be driven by cost and performance advantages over other materials, as well as technology and processing improvements. While low density polyethylene film will remain dominant, significantly better opportunities are expected for polypropylene and high density polyethylene. Best growth is expected for ethylene vinyl alcohol film in light of rising demand for higher gas and moisture barrier properties.

Did You Know?

• Plastic bags have only been in widespread use for the last 25 years.
• Worldwide annual consumption of plastic bags is over 600 billion – that means over one million bags are used every minute of every day.
• The U.S. consumes 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps annually.
• The U.S. uses 100 billion plastic grocery bags every year.
• Four out of five grocery bags in the U.S. are now plastic.
• The average American uses 139 plastic bags a year for storing food and other items.
• The average American household uses more than 400 plastic bags a year for storage.