A couple of weeks ago, I subjected some of the forthcoming internal paper bags to some stress testing, to see if they were going to withstand travelling in a ‘deboxed’ fashion, as well as holding together while soaking in water. The bags held together, but waster certainly got into the bags, and I drew the conclusion that the bags were likely to be typically fit for purpose, but might not stand up to floodwaters in the way that plastic bags might.

Readers Sue Ann and Trevor got in touch, and suggested that I might be overselling the ability of the plastic bags to protect the LEGO® elements from flood waters (with their associated stink and filth). And so, I put them to the test.

What did I do? And how did they perform? Read on, after the break

I had a sealed copy of the 81111 Cyberdrone, manufactured last year, with unopened plastic bags. I opened the box for the previous investigation of the paper bags.

I took the two plastic bags out of the box, ad placed them into a glass jar each. To each jar, I a couple of mls of blue food colouring. and then topped them up with water.

I placed the jars on the kitchen bench for a week:At the end of this time, I opened the jars up, and rinsed the contents. I removed the bags.

As you can see, there is blue dyed water has entered the plastic bags.

The plastic bags contining LEGO elements within the cardboard box are designed to contain the elements, and maintain the quality of the building flow. The seals on them are not waterproof. I had made the presumption that they were, and this was a quality that might have made the plastic bags preferable.

Now that we have seen the relative ineffectiveness in maintaining a waterproof seal, these plastic bags have little to recommend them over the paper bags as internal packaging. I recognise that the paper bags contain an extremely thin layer of plastic, but so little as to allow the bags to be recycled as paper.

The existing bags might be more effective when considering shore term washing or soaking, but in the event of an unudation with floodwaters, they cannot be relied on to keep your elements clean and dry.

Thanks for looking at this quick and easy follow up to the stress testing of the paper bags. Are you looking forward to using the new paper bags? Certainly, given the recent collapes of recycliers Redcycle, who collected the plastics deposited by Customers at Australian supermarkets, the ability to recycle the plastic bags in our country has been significantly curtailed. I the meantime we wait for the paper bags to arrive in sets on our shelves.

Until they arrive,

Play Well!