The Plastic Bag: From a Mundane Swedish Innovation to the World’s Oceans

The plastic bag is a mundane consumer product. It consists of just one inexpensive material, intended to carry other, more important, items. It is one of those objects that becomes more visible when it is out of context. But the plastic bag easily ends up there, out of context, demanding our attention. This essay explores how the plastic bag became an iconic symbol of environmental degradation, with a special focus on Sweden, the very place where the bag was invented. By combining perspectives from marketing and new materialism, this essay deepens our understanding of how the plastic bag was institutionalised.