In Defense of SunChips’ 100-Percent Compostable Bag

The only thing that's too loud is the complaining

This morning while listening to The Today Show I became so annoyed that I had to stop blow-drying my hair and turn around and actually pay attention to what Matt and Meredith were saying with more than a single ear. The topic: SunChips’ eco-friendly, 100-percent biodegradable bag—the first of its kind—has come under fire for being, quite simply, TOO LOUD.

Yes, that’s right. It is too crinkly. It makes too much NOISE. It’s causing “noise pollution.” Numerous Americans—nearly 30,000 of them have flocked to their very own Facebook group with the title “SORRY BUT I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THIS SUN CHIPS BAG” to complain—would rather fill landfills and be able to roll their SunChips bags down quietly than deal with this eardrum atrocity, even if said atrocity is better for the Earth. (Which is, in case they forgot, actually the planet that we live on and call home.)

In fact, The Wall Street Journal reported that an Air Force pilot actually stated the bag is “louder than ‘the cockpit of my jet’,” and that said pilot went so far as to test the loudness using a RadioShack sound meter. “He squeezed the bag and recorded a 95 decibel level. A bag of Tostitos Scoops chips (another Frito-Lay brand, in bags made from plastic) measured 77.”

Check out his video below. My favorite part is when he lowers his voice as he’s crinkling the bag and whispers, “You can barely hear me talk it’s so freaking loud!”

And he’s not the only one. YouTube has filled up with videos of SunChips eaters complaining about the loudness of the bags. Watch a few and you’ll come to the conclusion that yeah, the bags are a little loud.

But big deal. In a world where were our ears are almost constantly plugged with earbuds and the amount of trash I see piled into dump trunks every Friday morning  from my street in South Philly truly sickens me, it seems as though a crinkly bag is a small price to pay for a smarter, more earth-friendly package.

Which is why I applaud SunChips and hope they continue developing biodegradable packaging. And if they can make it quieter, great. If not, maybe people just need to get used to “the sound of change,” as Matt so aptly put it this morning.

What do you think, Philly? Are you for or against the SunChips bag?