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Sun Chips Bag Louder than Subway

Have you had any Sun Chips lately? If so, you would remember the experience. Last Earth Day in an effort to “go green,” Sun Chips came out with a new compostable package. It is the loudest packaging that I have ever heard in my life. My wife and I were astonished at how noisy it was when we first had one some months ago. It’s so loud that you hardly want to touch the bag. It’s that annoying.

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones annoyed. There’s now a Facebook page devoted to despising the Sun Chips bag. It’s titled “SORRY BUT I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THIS SUN CHIPS BAG,” and it has over 37,000 members. “The Today Show” reported about the widespread consumer dissatisfaction with the new packaging, and they found that the new bag is louder than the New York Subway. The Subway was 91 decibels, and the Sunchip bag was 95.

I wonder how long these bags will last. I predict not long. It’s not easy being green.

22 Comments

  • Jeremy

    At a recent small group meeting friends of our brought some and I was amazed at how loud they were. Imagine trying to enjoy some Sunchips while you have two sleeping kids…not happening with that bag!

  • Nathan

    Darius, being green isn’t always a joke. Why should the world experience negative results for your ease and convenience?

  • Darius

    What “negative results” are you talking about, Nathan? A minuscule amount of waste? “Being green” is just the most current form of idolatry and works-righteousness. People feel bad, people recycle, people feel better, YAY. And so on…

  • Nathan

    Minuscule amount of waste? hardly. Are you saying that Americans aren’t wasteful? Darius, I understand your avoidance of idolatry, but I think you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face (or throwing the baby out with the bath water).

    When we create unnecessary waste, that’s a bad thing. Just because we have the means to do something, doesn’t make it right. I wonder what you tell your kids. I bet you want them to be frugal with water, TP, food, etc. They should call your budget a joke and you an idolater and use a roll of TP for every visit to the bathroom.

    And so what if a company creates a compostable bag? All the properties of the bag aren’t ideal, but that doesn’t mean they will always be that way.

    Reducing waste is very important. It’s important in your home, it’s important to our nation. These new ideas can get us closer to being more effecient with our resources. That’s a good thing.

  • Miguel

    I echo Nathan.

    Additionally, I believe using a biodegradable bag makes us better stewards of God’s creation–regardless of how miniscule the impact may be.

  • Darius T

    Okay, could either of you tell me exactly what is wrong with a landfill? I mean, specifically. I know it is drummed into our heads that waste is bad, but I disagree. It’s a natural result of man living here on Earth, and eventually it all degrades away. I don’t think God cares much at all whether or not we have an extra landfill or two. We should likewise keep perspective and stop wasting our time trying to make ourselves feel good. And this is coming from someone who recycles, just so you know.

    Miguel, no, a biodegradable bag that annoys everyone around you does not make you a better steward of the Earth. It just degrades faster than other trash, but eventually it all returns to the dust from which it came. What is so morally superior to something that degrades in, say, 2 years instead of 10? Where is the line between morally good degrading and morally bad degrading rates?

  • Nate

    So Miguel, are you removing all the electric appliances from your home that people 40 years ago did not have? Your carbon footprint is so much larger because everything in your home is electrically powered or battery powered. 50 years ago watches and clocks were not electric, there were no cellphones, microwaves, big-screen tvs, ipods, ipads, etc. Forget the plastic bag issue, your use of electricity is not being green.

  • Miguel

    Nate, you make a good point.

    Thus we should not be so naive as to think that we live in a manner that is entirely “green.” However, this does not mean that we should not seek to be good stewards of God’s creation whenever we get the opportunity.

    Again, I concur, many of the appliances around our house, even our automobiles, are an environmental hazard. But like the sunchips bag, perhaps in a few years we will have the opportunity to use more environmentally friendly appliances and sources of power…though this will probably not come without some sort of inconvenience.

  • Nathan

    Darius, landfills are concentrated pollution. Sure, the stuff will eventually break down to dust, but as it does it leaches poisons into the drinking water and surrounding environment. They are an eyesore and they stink. No one wants to live near one. What you are saying is that instead of reducing the size of the landfills and minimizing the number of people impacted by them, we should increase them?! For what reason? YOUR convenience? YOUR short-sightedness? You are effectively saying that people will have to live near your garbage and deal with your waste because you don’t want to do anything about it. That’s kind of pathetic and not very God honoring, IMO.

  • Darius

    “Again, I concur, many of the appliances around our house, even our automobiles, are an environmental hazard. But like the sunchips bag, perhaps in a few years we will have the opportunity to use more environmentally friendly appliances and sources of power…though this will probably not come without some sort of inconvenience.”

    By this logic, rocks are bad. God made the material which sun chip bags are made from. Man just modified the material to make it useful for storing potato chips. There is nothing inherently wrong with sun chip bags or waste. Sure, it may be an eye sore, but last I checked, morality didn’t hinge on my aesthetic values.

    People, think! Don’t just let culture and society dictate to you what is worth spending your valuable time worrying about.

  • Darius

    Nathan, you’re so brainwashed you can’t even see it. An eyesore and a stink? By your bizarre logic, then we should eliminate all skunks, cause they certainly stink, and all warthogs, cause they both stink and are eyesores (IMO). Stop and think for a second. What exactly makes trash a moral issue?

    “What you are saying is that instead of reducing the size of the landfills and minimizing the number of people impacted by them, we should increase them?!”

    No, I didn’t say increase the number of landfills… just let them develop as necessary.

    “For what reason? YOUR convenience? YOUR short-sightedness? You are effectively saying that people will have to live near your garbage and deal with your waste because you don’t want to do anything about it. That’s kind of pathetic and not very God honoring, IMO.”

    Ah yes, your legalism begins to show its face. Howdy. Do you honestly know anyone who lives near landfills? It’s not like I’m proposing that we all start dumping our waste next to our homes. You’re losing the plot if you think that’s what I am suggesting. I’m merely saying don’t think you’re so holier than thou for recycling or changing your light bulbs or buying really noisy bags of chips. Jesus is not impressed.

  • Nathan

    last I checked, morality didn’t hinge on my aesthetic values.

    Have you forgotten the Golden Rule, Darius? Your noise pollution, air pollution, solid waste, etc. all affect other people. Minimize it where you can. Then, you’ll be minimizing your negative impact on your neighbors.

  • Miguel

    “People, think! Don’t just let culture and society dictate to you what is worth spending your valuable time worrying about.”

    Ditto.

  • Nathan

    Who is thy neighbor? Remote to you is local to those that live by the landfill. The more garbage there is plus the further away the landfill is means more energy used and more pollution created.

    I know that it is wrong of me, but I so wish that you and your family live downstream from people that have your exact same attitude as you do. I think that’s the only way that you will see that what you recommend is a pretty rotten thing to do.

  • Jackey

    Darius, your logic is so inane; it’s taken me a while to disseminate and counter it all. But because I have internal motivation and passion for the subject, rather than some selfish need to feel better, it was not a waste of time. And strangely enough, I do feel better for it. Genuinely. 1. Society and culture don’t dictate us to be green; they dictate us to be spendthrift and selfish. (Consider GWB’s post-9/11 advice to our distraught nation to keep shopping.)The majority of people think like you, which is why we’re in a situation where green initiatives are necessary in the first place. Also, society dictates us to be decent, respectful, educated people, so following expectations is often very positive.
    2. I don’t understand your point about time-wasting. Recycling isn’t much different from trash removal, which hopefully we all do every week. Reusable shopping bags don’t waste time. Neither do SunChips. Neither does driving a Hybrid. Plus, “worrying” about green issues doesn’t consume any more time than worrying about anything else. Should we not mull, ponder, or ruminate at all?
    3. Why are your recycling efforts unassuming while ours are self-righteous and pandering? What makes you so different? Assuming that most of us “go green” just to make ourselves feel better is unfair, unprovable, and unarguable in and of itself.
    4. Either way–isn’t that what we all do 24/7? Try to live in a manner that makes us as comfortable, and dare I say happy, as possible? How is that wrong?
    5. Furthermore, the impetus is irrelevant. What’s the difference whether I recycle to reduce waste or to impress my hippie friends? Either way, the optimal outcome for myself and society is still achieved, with no negative consequences or additional effort on anyone else’s part.
    6. Questioning why excessive landfills are a problem is so elementary I can’t even respond. You have Google; you do the research.
    7. Your argument that compostable bags are a waste and a pittance of an Earth saving effort is also elementary. So, because we can’t “save the world” in literally every aspect, we should do nothing because it would just be a waste (once again, of what exactly I’m unsure)? Your error here is only considering individual efforts–my actions and yours single-handedly do not make significant changes. We reach out to everyone because there exist billions of people who, combined, have enormous power to. (China saved around 180,000 tons of gasoline in one year by simply banning plastic bags. China is comprised of individual people, just like you and me, each contributing a small effort. That’s the crucial first step.)

    8. Should we ignore any ill that can’t be completely controlled? Should we forget Bin Laden because he’s just a drop in the monumental bucket of terrorism? (Which, by the way, is a lesser concern than global sustainability.
    After all, who’s left to terrorize if the planet becomes uninhabitable?) Of course not. We deal with problems as they arise, and we don’t strive for the unattainable. Green efforts target not eliminating, but significantly reducing waste and carbon emissions, which is a proven goal.

    Summarily, our “agenda” has never been and never will be to eradicate such issues. If it were, we wouldn’t be discussing SunChips because they would be nonexistent.

  • Jackey

    9. I completely forgot to address your humorous likening of biodegradable products vs. non to the difference between “2 and 10 years.” These bags supposedly would completely break down in three months. Ordinary plastic and metal, along with most other artificial substances, take thousands of years to degrade. Each. No one has ever experienced the biodegradation of plastic, and no one will in our lifetimes. So please, don’t cite said eventual nonexistence as reasonable and acceptable justification for the immense environmental hazard these items have caused and pose for the future. We simply can’t both destroy nature at the level we currently are while sustaining the level we need to survive. The global population is increasing rapidly, and there’s literally no way for nature to just ” keep up” and replenish itself. We all have to do something–no matter how insignificant, and no matter the reason. We owe it to the world for habituating us, to past generations for progressing us, and to future generations for creating them.

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