Widespread consumer campaigns based on the fact that throwaway plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to decompose, clog drains and pollute oceans, leading to the emergence of new, durable bags – Bags for Life.
A significant proportion of these are made from nonwoven fabrics – and they’ve been wildly successful.
In the UK, for example, they contributed to a 48% reduction in single-use plastic bags between 2006 and 2009. Some 870 million disposable plastic bags were used each month in 2006 and in 2009 the figure fell to 450 million – a monthly saving of 4,740 tonnes of waste going to landfill.
In Australia, they are known as green bags, both due to their eco-friendliness and standard green colour, with most made of 100% polypropylene nonwovens, which are not only very cost effective, but can also be recycled. As a consequence, many supermarkets around the world now offer to replace them when they become worn, in order to ensure they are recycled and further boost their own sustainable profiles.
Plastic shopping bags were first introduced in the USA in the 1970s, and flourished in the 1980s and 1990s in most parts of the world. They did not catch on so quickly everywhere, however, and in China, for instance, the durable nonwoven alternative has long been preferred. Not surprisingly then, China soon spotted a new opportunity as consumer attitudes towards throwaway plastic bags hardened in the US – some 1.6 billion spunbond nonwoven bags are estimated to have been imported to the USA from China alone between 2004 and 2008.
As early as the 1990s, the governments of some countries had already started to impose taxes on the distribution of disposable plastic bags or to regulate their use, and subsequently, countries including Ireland, Hong Kong, South Africa and Taiwan have imposed outright bans on their use.
In the case of Taiwan, this is hardly surprising, since this island’s record in recycling is exemplary. In fact in Taiwan, 90,000 tons of PET bottles are reclaimed back into fibre every year – the equivalent to four billion 600ml drinking water bottles, and almost twice the amount currently recycled throughout all western Europe.
The concept of ‘disposability’ is a contentious one, of course. Despite much evidence to the contrary, there is still a deeply-ingrained consumer view that single-use products overall must somehow equate with being more damaging to the environment than products intended for multiple re-use.
This is a view that has been successfully disproven through a range of Life Cycle Assessments and other studies carried out by organisations such as EDANA, with respect to other nonwoven-based products such as baby diapers and consumer wipes. It is somewhat ironic therefore, that nonwoven products are also now successfully keeping other waste out of the landfills.
In addition, advanced nonwoven technologies now allow the bags to display very effective patterns and designs – and since they are not going to be thrown away immediately, they represent a very effective new advertising medium.
Bags for Life are just one aspect of the growing use of nonwovens in the field of packaging – an area that will be the subject of a special focus at INDEX11 – the leading nonwovens show which takes place from April 12-15th at the Geneva Palexpo in Switzerland
The potential for nonwovens in packaging now stretches beyond the established areas, such as products like Tyvek and Typar for envelopes and house wrap, food contact wrapping and pads, agricultural covers and medical sterilisation packaging.
A delegation from EDANA, which sponsors the INDEX show, recently attended Emballage – the largest packaging show held in Paris in November – in order to spread this message.
In summary, nonwovens are easy to recycle and compost, easy to convert into pads and shapes and characterised by high tear resistance, strength, light-weight and cost effectiveness.
They can now also be very effectively printed and embossed, as visitors to INDEX11 will discover.
