Great Moments in Plastic Bag History

• 1957 The first baggies and sandwich bags on a roll are introduced.
• 1958 Poly dry cleaning bags compete with traditional brown paper.
• 1966 Plastic bag use in bread packaging takes over 25 to 30 percent of the market.
• 1966 Plastic produce bags on a roll are introduced in grocery stores.
• 1969 The New York City Sanitation Department's "New York City Experiment" demonstrates that plastic refuse bag kerbside pickup is cleaner, safer and quieter than metal trash can pick-up, beginning a shift to plastic can liners among consumers.
• 1974/75 Retailing giants such as Sears, J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward, Jordan Marsh, Allied, Federated and Hills make the switch to plastic merchandise bags.
• 1973 The first commercial system for manufacturing plastic grocery bags becomes operational
• 1977 The plastic grocery bag is introduced to the supermarket industry as an alternative to paper sacks.
• 1982 Kroger and Safeway start to replace traditional craft sacks with polyethylene "t-shirt" bags.
• 1990 The first blue bag recycling program begins with kerbside collection.
• 1990 Consumer plastic bag recycling begins through a supermarket collection-site network.
• 1992 Nearly half of U.S. supermarkets have recycling available for plastic bags.
• 1996 Four of five grocery bags used are plastic.