Battle of the garbage bags: Which bag will reign supreme?

Buyer beware folks! Buyer beware!



A close friend of mine told me that one big flaw in every garbage bag that he has ever encountered was that it had a big hole in it.

"Unacceptable," he said simply.

In advertising class, we had to do a buyer beware project. Our group decided to investigate the strength, the puncture capability and the seepage of garbage bags. We wanted to see how 'heavy duty' these garbage bags claim to be.

Since almost everyone is going green these days. We decided to find out if biodegradable garbage bags are as good to use as regular plastic bags for putting up with peoples' everyday trash. Although we didn't go dumpster diving or garbage collecting we did use some other alternatives to test out our choice of selected garbage bags.

The brands we tested were:
RONA ECO Compostable and 100% Biodegradable Bags for Garden Waste
Great Value Ty-Up Flaps Regular Outdoor Bags
GLAD ForceFlex Stretchable Strength Easy-Tie Bags
Husky Garbage Bags
RONA ECO Recycled Plastic Garbage Bags

For the strength test, we used a starting weight of 30 pounds and added additional exercise weights until the bag broke.

For the puncture test, we gathered branches and twigs and put them in each bag to see how resistant it was to pointy objects.

Finally for the seepage test, we filled the garbage bags with water and threw the bag around to see if it leaked.

After putting the garbage bags through torture, the only bag to win in all the tested categories was the RONA ECO Recycled Plastic Garbage Bags. It had reigned supreme in all our tests that we had conducted. The price for these garbage bags aren't bad either $4.99 for 40 bags sold at RONA Home and Garden.

It was an overall interesting experiment as we all made contributions into making this experiment a memorable one. Not to mention Brea, who tried attacking me with branches and tried stabbing my 'video' eye out.:)

For the results of how well each bag fared. Check out Michelle's blog entry here.

Tests conducted by:  David Driedger, Chadd Cawson, Brea Perrelli, Michelle Palansky and yours truly, Sharon Mak.

No garbage bags were harmed in this experiment...er did I use the word torture? *shifty eyes* No no! I didn't!

Here's a clip of an experiment we did with the garbage bags: