The TV commercial shows two moving men try to catch a piano with a Glad garbage bag—pretty funny. The commercial says, "Glad ForceFlex trash bags are so strong, one bag is all you need to pick up the pieces from even your biggest disasters."
To test Glad's claim, Consumer Reports constructed a rig and a tough challenge. No, Consumer Reports did not destroy a piano, but it did take enough pieces of metal and wood to simulate pieces of a piano that had broken apart.
The same test was done 10 times. Eleven sharp pieces were dropped in the same order and in exactly the same way. Then each bag was loaded with weights totaling 25 pounds. That's a lot less weight than a piano. None of the bags was able to hold all of the weight.
Next, a Glad competitor, Hefty Ultra Flex, was put to the same test. The results were better. The bag could hold all of the small piano pieces, as well as 20 to 25 pounds of additional weight. While the Hefty bags did tear, they did not spill their contents. Another plus, the Hefty Ultra Flex bags cost $2 less for a package of 25!
Consumer Reports did a garbage bag face-off five years ago with the Hefty Ultra Flex and Glad ForceFlex. You may remember that back then Glad's commercials showed the bags stopping an elephant's charge. Hefty won that face-off, too. So while time has passed, some things stay the same.
