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Biodegradable Frito-Lay bags getting yanked from shelves

The snack food giant is pulling most of the polylactic acid (PLA)-packed Sun Chips out of stores because consumers have complained that the material is too loud. As my colleague Tony Deligo reported here, the package used is a six-layer, 20-µm-thick film (PLA-print-adhesive-metal layer-PLA-PLA sealant) that's 90% by weight PLA and fully compostable in approximately 14 weeks when placed in a hot, active compost bin. 

, the package used is a six-layer, 20-µm-thick film (PLA-print-adhesive-metal layer-PLA-PLA sealant) that's 90% by weight PLA and fully compostable in approximately 14 weeks when placed in a hot, active compost bin. 

But as this article in USA Today illustrates, a consumer tsunami protesting the new package caused Frito-Lay to backtrack and re-introduce its previous packaging. Consumers organized a protest using the Facebook social media site on a page called 'Sorry but I can't hear you over this Sun Chips bag' and collected signatures protesting the PLA bags.

Here at this Facebook page, consumers argued for and against the packaging—mostly for PLA. As one commented, it could be that the additional cost of the PLA bags is the real reason the product is being pulled—and the "noise" about the bags' noise levels may be a suitable smokescreen for the switch back to standard metalized polyethylene packs.

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