Why are super strength bin liners as thin as a condom and with all the strength of wet rice paper?

Why...

Are bin liners so weak?

Every pack of bin liners my wife buys has packaging screaming, super strong, extra strength, tear proof. The Superman of black bags... yet unravel the roll and instead you get an anaemic Clarke Kent sack that will tear if you fill it with only cotton candy.

I assume ‘normal’ strength bags are so fragile they are only suitable to stick wishes and dreams into.

Is there no scale of strength for refuse bags? A minimum level of actually being able to hold something heavier than a ping pong ball?

There you go EU bureaucrats! Do something more useful than determining the curvature of a banana and give minimum strength requirements to bin bags.

...and another thing

One of the wonders of Malta is we get bin collection five times a week! (mass fainting of my U.K. readers who can wait three weeks for a collection).

However, instead of shoving a couple of days of rubbish into one bag we have to use a battalion of them. Anything heavier than an avocado peel means when the bin men come to lift them up, the bags tear and just dump the contents onto the ground.

Of those of us with a mischievous sense of humour, we see endless possibilities of fun with this when guests come to stay and offer to fill a bag and take the trash out.

...and another thing

It may seem incredible but I remember in my youth when there were no bin bags. Tough refuse collectors heaved heavy metal bins on their shoulders and just tipped the content into the compactors. This made hiding porn from your parents very difficult as the bin men would always yell Eureka when emptying our bins and diving into the compactor to save a discarded Mayfair or Penthouse I hoped I had smuggled out of the house. One bastard even rang the bell once to ask my shocked mother if we didn’t mind if he kept what he had saved!

...and another thing

At least when I lived in New York I saw one good use for bad rubbish bags.

It was the year the New York Rangers were kings of ice hockey with both Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier on the team. Hockey had been criticised in the press for not being racially diverse enough. It was Halloween and I was invited to their party. The whole team were dressed in only a dustbin sack and a sign hung round each of their necks reading  ‘White Trash’!

 

Stay safe

Add a comment