Today's Review: Primark Bags

Bags are great, they hold thing so we don't have to. Well, we have to hold the bags, but bags are designed to make the holding easier, with handles and strength and such. Bags are normally quite distinctive, with the company logo emblazoned for all to see. Nothing like some free advertising. Bags are everywhere, in different sizes and colours, some even becoming fashion accessories. But while most are quite adequate at carrying my shopping, there is one that has let me down more than most, and that is the Primark bag.

The Primark bag is a brown paper bag. It has the store name and location on it, but in essence it is just a regular old paper bag. You know who used paper bags the most before Primark came along? It's probably not scientifically proven, but I'll say hobos, for their liquor. I guess it worked out for them, because they'd constantly be supporting the weight of the bottle as they swig it at regular intervals. But Primark bags are different. They are supposed to be consistently supporting the weight of the clothes they hold, and more often than not that's a lot of clothes, because everything is so damn cheap in there. But a visit to Primark in the midst of a busy shopping day only ends in disaster involving this crappy brown bag.

First of all, the handles aren't the strongest of things. They're also made of paper, slightly thicker paper, but paper nonetheless. This means a lot of the time they'll just rip away from the bag itself, and a large paper bag with handles is no fun to carry. In fact, trying to cart around a handle-less paper bag often leads to the rest of the bag slowly disintegrating, until clothes threaten to spill onto the pavement. Also, it better not be raining at any point during your trip, because these bags will lap up that rain and subsequently dissolve.

I get that Primark want to do the right thing. Paper is cheap and biodegradable, therefore the environment is saved. But when I'm buying cheap clothing of questionable ethical origin in bulk, I don't think I care too much about the planet as much as how Im going to get my stuff home without the clothing itself trying to become one with the earth. If you're going with paper, at least make the bags a bit stronger. As they are, the Primark bags suck.

My rating: 1/5