I wrote to the ZipLock bags comment form this morning:
Dear Ziplock Bags,
I am writing as both a concerned citizen and a fan of Ziplocks. The bags are handy and very much can be done with them to keep foods, activities, and precious items preserved and safe.
I’m sure you know what a scourge single use plastics is having on our beautiful earth.
Please do not discount this concern. Single use plastics are soiling and poisoning, polluting and littering our waterways, wildlife, community spaces, and natural settings. Please, please become part of the solution and not part of the problem.
You COULD become part of the solution by collecting up or creating a market for post consumer waste. You could use this post consumer waste as raw materials for your bags. You COULD make your bags out of a high content of post consumer waste. The more you create a market for and use these materials in your products, the more likely they will be disposed of properly and energetically collected up instead of ending up in landfills or slowly degrading in our waterways to poison us all with micro plastics. Yuck.
Please, please become a leader in this.
Please.
Thank You,
Emily Gleichenhaus
Arlington, VA
Project PUT: Pick Up Trash
Every little PUT counts
http://ProjectPUT.org
@ProjectPUT (Facebook & Twitter)
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6/20/2018
Kind response from SC Johnson company:
consumerproducts@scj.com
To emleatha@att.net
Today at 9:00 AM
Hi Emily,
Thanks for getting in touch about Ziploc® brand Bags. Please know, we share your commitment to the environment. For this reason, we’re continually evaluating our packages to downsize them whenever possible. As a direct result of this effort, many of our products have undergone changes to their packaging in order to reflect our stance. We deeply appreciate how you share our passion, and I made sure to pass your comments along to the appropriate people in our company. Furthermore, it might interest you to know that Ziploc® brand bags can be recycled since they’re made from Polyethylene Plastic Resin #4. You can take them to any retail location that accepts plastic shopping/grocery bags for recycling (like Walmart) and they’ll recycle them for you. Additionally, the cartons our bags come in are 100% recycled paperboard with a minimum of 35% post consumer recycled paperboard. We want you to feel good about your decision when you purchase our product; if you have anymore questions or comments we welcome your reply.
Regards,
Amber
Consumer Relationship Center
SC Johnson, A Family Company
USA 1-800-558-5252 | scjohnson.comCanada 1-800-558-5566 | scjohnson.ca
Reference Number: 019150957A
Received: 06/11/18, 08:50:42From: emleatha@att.net
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6/20/2018
My response to the response:
Thank you Amber!
Please know that I noticed already and praise that the paperboard product packaging is comprised of post consumer waste. This is good and an important standard to continues.
I also understand that the products themselves are recyclable. My family reuses the bags as many times and for as many purposes as possible to before discarding them in the bag of recyclable bags.
My MAIN concern was not addressed by your nice note above, however. I’m proposing that the Ziplock bags themselves should be manufactured with post consumer waste plastics. The bags could (and should, please, to create a market for these materials) be manufactured from post consumer plastics from recycle centers or those extracted out of the ocean. Some of these plastics could come, say, from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I’d be willing to bet you that MANY Ziplock products could be found there in that patch, in landfills (even 100 years hence), in sewers, gutters, lakes, streams, and just about anywhere you can find garbage. If it is true that SC Johnson Company is passionate about the environment (and not just lying to say so to give me a warm fuzzy feeling from a cordial reply to my original email) then SC Johnson will work to require Ziplock bags to begin manufacture with post consumer plastics as a raw material.
Thanks,
Arlington, VA
Project PUT: Pick Up Trash
Every little PUT counts
http://ProjectPUT.org
@ProjectPUT (Facebook & Twitter)
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SC Johnson Response, 6/30/2018
Something interesting that I did not know:
Thanks for following up, Emily.
We too share your concerns and, whenever possible, we try to reduce the amount of packaging and/or use recyclable materials.
For awareness, we must use new material in Ziploc® bags (the FDA requires the use of virgin material plastic in the manufacturing of these products) for food safety reasons, although we have been able to create packaging for these products that contain high contents of recycled material. The cartons are 100% recycled paperboard with a minimum of 35% post consumer recycled paperboard.
Best regards,
Denise
Consumer Relationship Center
SC Johnson, A Family Company
USA 1-800-558-5252 | scjohnson.com
Canada 1-800-558-5566 | scjohnson.ca
Reference Number: 019150957B
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My Response 6/30/2018
Thank you!
I did not know that virgin material needed to be used for the plastic bags.
That is interesting and I learned something.
I’m glad that the cartons use post consumer waste.
I do very sincerely hope that your company will look to use high content of post consumer plastic, as opposed to virgin plastic, in every possible instance where it would be allowed.
Thank you,
Emily
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