Inventors
Garbage
Bag - Harry Wasylyk
By
Mary
Bellis
The familiar green plastic garbage
bag (made from polyethylene) was invented by
Harry Wasylyk in 1950.
Harry Wasylyk was a Canadian inventor
from Winnipeg, Manitoba, who together with Larry Hansen of Lindsay, Ontario,
invented the disposable green polyethylene garbage bag. Garbage bags were
first intended for commercial use rather than home use - the bags were
first sold to the Winnipeg General Hospital. However, Hansen worked for
the Union Carbide Company in Lindsay, who bought the invention from Wasylyk
and Hansen. Union Carbide manufactured the first green garbage bags under
the name Glad Garbage bags for home use in the late 1960s.
How Garbage
Bags are Made
Garbage bags are made from low density
polyethylene, which was invented in 1942. Low density polyethylene is soft,
stretchy, and water and air proof. Polyethylene is delivered in the form
of small resin pellets or beads. By a process called extrusion, the hard
beads are converted into bags of plastic.
The hard polyethylene beads are heated
to a temperature of 200 degrees centigrade. The molten polyethylene is
put under high pressure and mixed with agents that provide color and make
the plastic pliable. The prepared plastic polyethylene is blown into one
long tube of bagging, which is then cooled, collapsed, cut to the right
individual length, and sealed on one end to make a garbage bag.
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