What a Bunch of Garbage!
Last year, Frito-Lay announced that it would be selling SunChips in environmentally-friendly packaging. The new bags, they said, were biodegradable and could be composted rather than just thrown away. Personally, I found the idea pretty cool.
It was announced today, however, that the company is discontinuing the innovative packaging:
Frito-Lay sends noisy, 'green' SunChips bag to the dump
The reason for regressing to the old bags? The new bags are too loud.
I found this paragraph from the article particularly telling:
The noise of the bag — due to an unusual molecular structure that makes the bag more rigid — has been compared to everything from lawnmowers to jet engines. There's even an active Facebook group with more than 44,000 friends that goes by the name of "Sorry But I Can't Hear You Over This SunChips Bag."§
Lawnmowers? Jet engines? Seriously? Do people really find the bags that loud?
According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Noise and Hearing Loss web site, a lawnmower generates around 90 decibels (dB) of noise—louder than an alarm clock, comparable to truck traffic or a subway. A jet engine on takeoff is even louder: 120 dB, enough to be classified as painful.
Are SunChips bags really this loud? As REO Speedwagon (rock music, 110 dB) would say, “I don’t believe it. Not for a minute.”
SunChips bags are louder than other snack bags; there’s no denying that. And even if they’re really not as loud as a lawnmower, they are loud enough to be noticeable. That makes them loud enough to be an inconvenience to us. Consequently, the bags must go.
I guess the truth of the matter is that we believe it’s great to be environmentally sensitive—as long as it’s not too inconvenient (the movie notwithstanding).
One day our lazy, spoiled, convenience-driven society is going to figure out that sometimes, doing the right thing is necessarily inconvenient. I hope. We’ve done things the convenient way for decades in regard to energy, resource management, and pollution—and that’s why we are where we are now. And that’s where we’ll stay, until and unless we start doing things differently. We can’t expect different results than before if our behavior’s no different than before.
It’s hard for me to believe that noisy chip bags have become such a big problem. For Frito-Lay, however, the problem is about more than consumer complaints or stupid Facebook groups. It’s about money. Sales of SunChips have dropped more than 10% over the past year. In the face of such losses—especially in a down economy—what choice does the company really have? Money trumps environmental awareness every time.
Will compostable chip bags save the planet? No. But they’re a step in the right direction. If we’re smart, we may just realize that we can endure a little ‘noise pollution’ in order to cut down on the real kind.
Until then, I’m going to go buy some SunChips while the cool bags are still available.
--
§ To my mind, this proves only that there are more than 44,000 idiots on Facebook. But I already suspected this.
It was announced today, however, that the company is discontinuing the innovative packaging:
Frito-Lay sends noisy, 'green' SunChips bag to the dump
The reason for regressing to the old bags? The new bags are too loud.
I found this paragraph from the article particularly telling:
The noise of the bag — due to an unusual molecular structure that makes the bag more rigid — has been compared to everything from lawnmowers to jet engines. There's even an active Facebook group with more than 44,000 friends that goes by the name of "Sorry But I Can't Hear You Over This SunChips Bag."§
Lawnmowers? Jet engines? Seriously? Do people really find the bags that loud?
According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Noise and Hearing Loss web site, a lawnmower generates around 90 decibels (dB) of noise—louder than an alarm clock, comparable to truck traffic or a subway. A jet engine on takeoff is even louder: 120 dB, enough to be classified as painful.
Are SunChips bags really this loud? As REO Speedwagon (rock music, 110 dB) would say, “I don’t believe it. Not for a minute.”
SunChips bags are louder than other snack bags; there’s no denying that. And even if they’re really not as loud as a lawnmower, they are loud enough to be noticeable. That makes them loud enough to be an inconvenience to us. Consequently, the bags must go.
I guess the truth of the matter is that we believe it’s great to be environmentally sensitive—as long as it’s not too inconvenient (the movie notwithstanding).
One day our lazy, spoiled, convenience-driven society is going to figure out that sometimes, doing the right thing is necessarily inconvenient. I hope. We’ve done things the convenient way for decades in regard to energy, resource management, and pollution—and that’s why we are where we are now. And that’s where we’ll stay, until and unless we start doing things differently. We can’t expect different results than before if our behavior’s no different than before.
It’s hard for me to believe that noisy chip bags have become such a big problem. For Frito-Lay, however, the problem is about more than consumer complaints or stupid Facebook groups. It’s about money. Sales of SunChips have dropped more than 10% over the past year. In the face of such losses—especially in a down economy—what choice does the company really have? Money trumps environmental awareness every time.
Will compostable chip bags save the planet? No. But they’re a step in the right direction. If we’re smart, we may just realize that we can endure a little ‘noise pollution’ in order to cut down on the real kind.
Until then, I’m going to go buy some SunChips while the cool bags are still available.
--
§ To my mind, this proves only that there are more than 44,000 idiots on Facebook. But I already suspected this.
posted by Michael at
6:30 PM
1 Comments:
Yeah.
What you said.
By
Wendy, At
October 06, 2010 11:50 AM
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