Goodbye, old bag: German museum documents history of plastic bags

As calls for plastic bans gain momentum, plastic bags are slowly becoming artifacts from the past, with people increasingly using alternative ways to pack up their shopping. That's why the Museum of Everyday Life in Waldenbuch in southern Germany decided to dedicate a special exhibition to the history and design of plastic bags.

In the 1950, people still used baskets to carry their shopping. But during the 1960s, shopping morphed into more of a leisure activity, with shopping malls replacing more traditional retail outlets. By 1965, plastic bags became a common staple there: They were cheap, colorful and easy to mass-produce. And they could easily be reused for gift-wrapping later.

Businesses soon realized that plastic bags also provided them with prime advertising space. And many companies were willing to splurge a little when it came to designing them. Even pop-art icon Andy Warhol was in on the plastic bag game. Meanwhile, in Germany, famous graphic designer Günter Fruhtrunk (1923-1982) came up with the look of the bags for discount grocery store chain ALDI.

Forget Louis Vuitton, Furla and Hermes: In the 1970s and 80s, the most coveted bags in the world came free with every purchase. Carrying a plastic bag from a Rolling Stones concert or from your favorite music store was meant to reflect something crucial about your individuality — as advertising executives intended.

Curator Frank Lang and his team at the Museum of Everyday Life are faced with a difficult task: The only way to ensure the quality of plastic bags is to keep them away from other bags and flatten them. Only then can they be pressed in between large slides and hung up for display. Otherwise, they lose much of their shape, color and design — despite its reputation, plastic is also subject to decay.

Meanwhile, the environmental dangers posed by various plastic components have become a regular talking point. Animals can get stuck in plastic components and suffer or even die. And so-called microplastics can work their way up through the food chain and be digested by humans, something which may have unknown long-term health consequences.

The shopping spree of the future is likely to look quite different from this image taken in London in 2011. The world of packaging is adapting to at least some of the demands that environmentalists have been voicing for years. Politicians are also supporting a move away from plastic, with Germany aiming to ban plastic bags in 2020 and EU guidelines clamping down on other forms of plastic in 2021.

You can still say your own goodbyes to more than 1,000 plastic bags shown at the Museum of Everyday Life in Waldenbuch until July 3, 2020, which were selected from a whopping shortlist of more than 50,000 samples. There's also reason to keep revisiting the show: The museum intends to highlight a different set of plastic bags each month until the closing date of the exhibition.