REUSABLE SHOPPING BAGS:

The use of polymers has influenced our lives in a huge way. A huge range of products
ranging from clothing as well as packaging has long been under huge control of plastics
placed by the fact of providing alternative usage to traditional textile materials. In some
industries however polymers in the form of plastics have overtaken the usage of
traditional textiles such as cotton, jute, paper etc. Most industries especially the retail and
wholesale markets use plastic shopping bag as the main packaging material for carrying
goods. However providing these alternatives also brings contributions to environmental
pollution.

From the mid 1980s on, the use of plastic bags became common for carrying daily
groceries from the store to vehicles and homes. As plastic bags increasingly replaced
paper bags, and as other plastic materials and products replaced glass, metal, stone,
timber and other materials, a packaging material’s war erupted with plastic shopping bags
at the center of highly publicized battles. Currently, while no peer reviewed study or
government survey has provided estimates for global plastic bag use, environmental
activists estimate that between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used each year
worldwide.. In 2009 the United States International Trade Commission did report that the
number of bags used in the Untied States was 102 Billion

Shopping bags are medium sized bags typically around 10-20 liters in volume. The
current manufacturing trend of shopping bags use mostly polyethylene, a widely used
polymer obtained as a by product of natural gas and petroleum. They are generally
manufactured by blow extrusion. A huge variety of these shopping bags are single use
disposables. Although polyethylene can be recycled, most of the commercial
polyethylene ends up in landfills, and in the oceans. Polyethylene is not
considered biodegradable, because, except when it is exposed to UV from sunlight, it
takes several centuries until it is efficiently degraded. It did actually provide an
alternative to the use of traditional textile materials but on the other hand increase usage
of plastic bags, improper recycling and disposal of these bags have accounted for major
problems for environmentalists worldwide.

Legislation in some European countries has by far reduced the dependence on single use
disposable shopping bags however there still exists major problems. Other alternative to
the use of plastic bags is the introduction of reusable green bags.

REUSABLE GREEN BAGS:

As the name would suggest, green bags are more durable to use than single use plastic or
paper bags and are quite easily recycled one way or the other. These are mostly available
as carrier bags in retail supermarkets or stores and provide a much better alternative to
single use shopping bags. They require must less waste of natural resources such as oil
and less emission of carbon dioxide to produce than plastic bags.
These types of bags are generally made from non woven materials. Non woven materials
are functional textiles commonly referred to as technical textiles. These non woven sheets
are manufactured by the process referred to as Spun bonding process where chips or
pallets of polypropylene (either pure or recycled) are spun through a spinneret. After
spinning a web of continous fibers are laid as a horizontal sheet and a gluing material is
applied to form the sheet. This non woven sheet is then stitched or produced
automatically by feeding it to an automatic bag making machine which gives you
shopping bags in different sizes and shapes.

During the manufacturing process where virgin/recycled polypropylene chips are being
added to the spun bonding setup for extrusion, many additives are added such as color
pigments to provide different variety of colors to the non woven sheet and UV stabilizers
which will protect this sheet from UV degradation when exposed to sunlight. This hence
gives you the advantage of multiple reusing rather than single use disposable plastic bags.