I’ve noticed that every product I’ve bought in the past year with a zip-lock seal is destroyed with common use. I actually think the zip-lock itself has gotten stronger. The bag rips before the seal opens on half the bags now and whenever I try to opens bags I had no issues with before, I find myself stretching/warping the plastic before the seal eventually opens.
It’s pretty frustrating and I am seeing it across many products. Cheese bags, storage bags, snacks etc…
I don’t think the zip-lock got stronger, I think the bags got thinner and weaker. But either way, they do tear more than they used to.
Which… might be ok, if the object is to reduce plastic consumption and pollution.
It’s not. It’s to make more money. Everything will continue to get slightly worse - year after year - for as long as this current economic ideology continues.
The point is… before you could reuse the bags MUCH more often, now I’m blowing out gallon ziplocks after 2-3 deli bought and home diced vegetables uses. The zipper is stronger like OP says, but the sides are tearing more easily.
Then get rid of the non-functional ziplock part altogether. That’d save way more plastic.
Otherwise known as shrinkflation. Selling a product for the same (or higher) price, but adding less of the product. By cutting small, barely noticeable portions out a little at a time, the company saves money in materials, but continues charging the same price. Basically, min-maxing profits.
shrinkflation
nah it’s just corporate greed. Calling this ‘shrinkflation’ gives these greedy price gougers some form of excuse by linking it to inflation even though they’re doing this to us simply because they can.
There is actually a trick to open them. Just slide the two halfs of the zip along each other and (between your fingers) the ends will pop open. This is a trick I use in my retail job almost every day.
Hope I explained that well enough.
That works a couple times, but then the side seams of the zipper part will start to tear.
Does it work on commercial products with ziplock ? That always tears for me
The greatest lie ever told is “pull here to open”.
Yeah I keep buying bags of cheese where the zip just rips off the bag when I pull the zip open. Really annoying.
I tried to open a zip locked bag of trail mix and degloved my hand
Ziploc, the OG name brand, seems about the same as ever. The trouble is in thousands of knockoffs for niche uses. They haven’t benefited from decades of tweaking the design to be strong enough, but not too strong, and easy to get back together.
Legal weed bags are the worst.
The weed bags are the worst. And it’s usually because the zipper is so damn strong, the bag breaks instead of opening.
On the bright side, think about all the plastic pollution that happens because the government won’t let me take my own glass jar to the weed store!
Wait that sucks actually
I disagree. The problem described by OP is one that I have with Ziplok brand primarily.
What state are you in?
I switched to the store brand. Ziplock name brand bags got too hard to open.
I’ve noticed a lot of Zip-Lock bags i use at home tear at the seams sometimes, and the resealable bags from store bought food generally just sucks. Some bags of cheese or “deli meat” bags have a hard time resealing properly, and i find i have to keep opening and resealing before i feel every part of it snap together.
But honestly it all just generates more trash to toss out.
Yeah this is just noticeable because most products weren’t even resealable, they just expected you to seal em yourself with a clip, twist em, put em in a container, etc.
Now they are adding cheap resealable zips to the bag, which is nice in theory but the bag material has to be strong enough to support it.
Actual ziplock baggies themselves are made of thick plastic that can take a bit of abuse.
But cheap paper plastic hybrid materials a chip bag us made of can’t handle that sort of load, so it becomes the fail point.
Are you using the name brand bags? Ziploc is one of the few products where buying the actual name brand makes a big difference.
Yes. I have a mix of those and the target / smart & final bags. The issue is appearing in all of them, and also in random foods that use that style of seal as well.
I have not experienced the problem that you are experiencing. But I’m still using bags that I bought last year since we buy in bulk at Costco. Perhaps they cheapened the build quality in the last year.
The stretchy blue ones they make now are awesome. Unfortunately awesome, I buy them sometimes now after years of avoiding them and just reusing whatever bags. The ones that cheese slices come in do seem to have ziplock that is too strong/tight for the bag, I agree. Whether it’s a function of the zipper changing or bags using less plastic, I don’t know.
