The sound of progress

The saga of the noisy SunChips bag continues.

Those who keep track of salty, snack-food trivia may recall the brouhaha over Frito-Lay's introduction of The World's First 100% Compostable Plastic Chip Bag for its SunChips snacks. Despite a green, feel-good campaign, American consumers complained that the new bag, made out of plant-based PLA plastic, was too noisy resulting in a return to the original [ne': non-compostable] plastic bags a year later. Attempting to market green practices (SunChips also claims its chips are made using power from wind energy) came face-to-face with a reported sales decline and Frito-Lay crumpled like a... well, you know.

People who care about things like non-biodegradable plastic bag waste clogging up landfills and waterways found their voices drowned out by chip-munching complainers and likely, the brittle crinkling of the bags themselves.

Now our anecdotally more laid-back neighbors to the north are telling complainers to stick it in their ear, literally. SunChips Canada has decided to hold the line on the compostable packaging, going as far as offering noisy-bag haters a free set of earplugs through the SunChips Canada Facebook page.

They've also launched a public awareness campain beginning with the release of this "public service announcement" video. Kudos to SunChips Canada for not crumbling under pressure.