One observant Minnesota grocery store owner, Walter H. Deubner, wanted to increase trade at his store. He noticed that what people purchased was limited by what they could carry.
Four years later, he had developed a prefabricated inexpensive package – a paper bag with a cord running through it. This ‘Deubner Shopping Bag’ was easy to use and strong enough to carry up to seventy-five pounds of groceries. The bags cost five cents each. Deubner patented his bag in 1912 and within three years, he was selling over a million shopping bags a year.
The inventor of the modern lightweight plastic shopping bag was the Swedish engineer, Sten Gustaf Thulin. He created a bag, made in one piece from a flat tube of plastic for the packaging company Celloplast, who patented it worldwide in 1965. It was strong and could carry a lot. The company was a pioneer in plastics processing and expanded across Europe and the US to manufacture shopping bags. The US petrochemicals group, Mobil, overturned Celloplast’s US patent in 1977.
The Dixie Bag Company, of Georgia, the Houston Poly Bag and Capitol Poly all developed the manufacturing techniques further and grocery chains began to use plastic (or polyethylene) bags instead of paper ones. By the mid 1980s, plastic bags were being used to carry shopping by consumers the world over.
Often referred to as the ‘single use bag’, what was once a consumer benefit has since become an environmental concern. Many retailers are attempting to minimize and in some cases, eliminate plastic bags, even though they are recyclable and biodegradable, and encouraging shoppers to bring their own bags. With as many as 1 trillion plastic bags being used each year globally, retailers and consumers are more conscientious than ever about the impact on the environment.
Contribution to Retail History
Polythene shopping bags increased the average transaction value by enabling customers to purchase and transport more products. The bags also provided a relatively cheap but highly visible way for retailers to promote their brand. In recent years, retailers have encouraged customers to move towards stylish and earth friendly bags, which are customized to the retailers and company brands, in order to reduce the use of plastic.