In hot water: Anne Ashworth puts the bags to the test
The aftermath of the Black Friday and Christmas online shopping binge is bins full of packaging – not all of it recyclable.
But the latest weapon in the fight against the mounds of rubbish is the see-through Polymax bag that is said to dissolve immediately in hot water.
It is made from Hydropol, a soluble and biodegradable polymer.
The first big UK retail name to pioneer this environmentally-friendly innovation will be online fashion company N Brown, owner of the JD Williams, Simply Be and Jacamo fashion brands.
Sarah Welsh, N Brown’s retail chief executive, said that the company would be starting to use the polymer material for garment bags this month.
The aim is to reduce its conventional plastic usage by 44 per cent by the end of 2025.
A bag that dissolves naturally sounds great – but does it work? The Financial Mail team put it to the test.
An initial try with warm water did not succeed: instead of disappearing, the bag turned to gloop.
But when we poured boiling water on the bag in a container, the bag vanished within seconds, leaving the water almost clear.
Some will find this transformation endlessly entertaining. Those who don’t want to get into hot water can safely dispose of the bag in a blue or green recycling bin. It also biodegrades on landfill.
N Brown says if all clothing retailers globally switched to Polymax, 25 million fewer tons of conventional, hard-to-recycle packaging would be thrown away every year.
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