Wei Liu: Natural Fiber Rope on Paper Bag to Seal Trash

                                                          Wei Liu, U. S. citizen, U. S. veteran, California, February 12, 2026

        As of February 2026, 12 states of America have banned stores giving plastic bags to customer, including California, Oregon, Washington State, Colorada, New York State, New Jersey, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine. Now the stores give customer paper bags. The purpose is that plastic bag does not decompose in soil and paper bag decomposes in soil. But there is a big problem: paper bag does not seal/close the trash by itself, Figure 1 looking as below (Picture by Author). 

        If paper bag cannot seal the trash, then people have to buy big plastic bag to throw away trash because trash has to be bagged/sealed. Then the environment may see more plastic bags in weight. The solution is to use natural fiber ropes, like jute ropes, able to decompose in soil, to tie the paper bag to seal/close the trash. Jute rope from ACE in 2026 California is about $2 for 60 meters. Figure 2 looks as below (Picture by Author).

        Paper is afraid of water or rain. So try to avoid dripping water on the paper bag in the trash can. Many apartment buildings have dumpster inside the building, immune to the rain. When throwing away trash, cut about 2 meters of jute rope, fold the open side of paper bag to close, tie around the paper bag a couple of times by rope. Figure 3 looks as below (Picture by Author).

        Shopping paper bag is wood fiber paper. The associated property of Wood Fiber Paper and Jute Rope, a kind of natural fiber rope, Figure 4 is below (ChatGPT 2026).

        In America, 5 floors or higher apartment buildings usually has trash chute, vertical channel, for trash bag to fall down to the dumpster at the ground floor. In daily life, such paper bag from store holds about 3 kg of trash. Tensile strength of dry paper bag is 50 MPa. Vertical height of each floor is 3 m. Thickness of paper bag is 0.15 mm. Effective width is 0.3 m. The average impact/colliding time of paper trash bag on dumpster is 0.07 second. Find the height of how many floors will make a paper bag with 3 kg trash break when it hits the dumpster at the ground floor.

        Solution: Contact Area = Thickness*Effective Width = 0.00015*0.3 = 0.000045 m²           

                        Force break = Tensile Strength*Contact Area = 50*10⁶*0.000045 = 2250 Newton

                        Impulse = Change of Momentum

                        Force break*Time contact = Mass(Velocity final – Velocity initial)

                        2250*0.07 = 3(Velocity final –0)                         Velocity final = 52.5 m/s

                        2*Acceleration*Height = Velocity final² –Velocity initial²

                        2*9.81*Height = 52.5² –0²                     Height = 140 meter

                        Number floors = Total Height/Height per floor = 140/3 = 47 floor

                        This means paper trash bag from 47 floors or higher will break; below that, it does not break. In America, it is rare to see

                        apartment building above 23 floors. So if tied properly with natural fiber rope, paper trash bag should not break in trash

                        chute of apartment building. We don’t need to worry too much of wet paper bag because people can get plenty paper bags

                        from store and can always put a dry paper bag over the wet paper bag at home.

        Finally, Figure 5: Money cost and time cost of this project is below (Picture by Author).

                                                                                 References

ChatGPT. (2026). Properties of Wood Fiber Paper and Jute Rope.

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