Raschel closure! Total recycling from 2030

Brussels has spoken, and now it has reached me too: From 2030, all packaging must be recyclable. All of it! That's what it says in the Official Journal, as sober as the ingredients list of an industrial waffle. It's called „Design for Recycling“. It sounds like an art seminar in Weimar, but it means that everyday life as we know it will undergo a minor revolution. At least on the supermarket shelf. The bag of crisps, for example: this little marvel made of high-gloss on the outside, aluminium on the inside and mysterious intermediate material that could only be separated cleanly with a welding torch from the space agency. Soon this will be a thing of the past. Mono-material will be the order of the day. A kind of Bauhaus in the snack segment. „Form follows recycling.“

Apart from the fact that my wife forbids me to eat crisps anyway - regardless of how they are presented: of course it makes sense. Plastic, especially in the popular bag form, is simply out of date. But I admit it: I'm one of those people who thought the rustling of a plastic bag was somehow sexy. What's more, it was also a very useful distinguishing feature - affordable, omnipresent and never to be underestimated as a statement. You walked through the city with it like a fluttering status symbol. If you wanted to, you could immediately recognise your own lifestyle from the print: „Aldi Nord“ meant pragmatism, „Karstadt“ a certain bourgeoisie, and those who liked it particularly sophisticated carried a shiny bag from Gucci or Louis Vuitton through the pedestrian zone and proudly outed themselves as high earners. Or hallodri - as the case may be. Today, jute bags with slogans like „There is no Planet B“ often dangle from the handle of the cargo bike and preach a more responsible lifestyle. Nice. (But they don't make a sexy rustling sound).