Affective and material politics of plastic bags: a follow-the-thing analysis

This article explores everyday plastic relations with a focus on plastic bags as sticky objects that are saturated with conflicting emotions, from gratitude and relief to despair. With a material semiotic and affective theoretical lens, and conducting a reflexive thematic analysis of open-ended survey answers (N = 91) from Finnish respondents, the study reveals how plastic bags’ material properties shape the meanings of bags, the related emotional responses and everyday practices. Methodologically, the article repurposes the follow-the-thing approach as an analytical framework to organise the findings, tracing bags’ trajectories from supermarket cashiers to diverse afterlives. The results indicate that plastic bags and consumer subjectivities coemerge relationally, marked by a multiplicity that avoids simple characterizations of consumers and plastics. The findings challenge consumer-centric framings of environmental politics, emphasising the structural nature of plastics. The plastic bag is more than an insignificant, disposable item: it is an ethically potent object of political provocation, calling for resistance and systemic change beyond individual consumer action.