Tape Manufacturers in Crisis as Tape Backing Technology Falls Further Behind

Tape manufacturing has reached a crisis point as advances in tapes and the adhesives that make them sticky, have far outpaced the ability of makers of tape backing, the material that tape sticks to so it can be rolled up or otherwise delivered for use, to keep up. 3M, makers of Post-It Notes, Scotch tape, and a variety of tapes and adhesives that have become household names, has been ground zero for the ongoing crisis. Vice President of 3M's tapes and glues division Alfredo Espinoza said the following yesterday in a prepared statement describing the rapidly worsening crisis.

"It turns out it is just much easier to make things stick together, than to prevent things from sticking together"

"The tape making industry is at a crisis point. Things are worse than they have been at any time in the past 50 years of tape manufacturing, even worse than the horrific decade of the 1980s when the 'horse' glue scandals hit hard and the high cost of oil caused a huge bust in the tape markets. This was following twenty years of massive grwoth fueled by the worlds ever growing desire to stick things together that normally would not stick together or that had prepviously been together but had subsequently fallen apart. Prior to the 80's the tape industry thought that desire would be forever unquenchable. We learned a hard lesson then, but bounced back strongly until today. Today we face an even greater problem than the use of remains from slaughtered horses to prepare cheap adhesives. Unfortunately the science of adhesives has continued to advance at a breathtaking rate, with ever stickier substances invented seemingly daily, meanwhile the science of slippery substances, has fallen further and further behind. And so we tape manufacturers find ourselves in a world where the most advanced, highly functional, and just plain awesome tapes remain just out of reach. Not because we cannot stick things together using these next generation adhesives, but instead because we cannot deliver them in a strip format with a backing that will actually be removable by the average consumer. We have a saying in the tape industry.

A tape without a backing is like a symphony without a conducter.

All the instruments might be there in the pit together fully capable of producing beautiful music, but without the conducter to stick them together, they are useless. It may not be the best analogy, and really upon closer examination, makes very little sense, but when you think about it, neither does sticky tape without any backing. It just makes no sense. I mean how can you repair a ripped piece of paper with only adhesive. You can't just glue it back together. That would be impossible as the edges are way too thin. You would have to overlap the pieces of the paper which would of course ruin the legibility of the contents. Only tape can be used to achieve this most difficult of tasks. I would recommend 3M clear plastic Scotch tape for the job as it has the highest hold load capacity and lowest optical density, and therefore is the strongest and most clear, of all the various Scotch tape pretenders on the market today. You might also consider the use of a 3M Post-It note as a method for writing a quick reminder to yourself to buy more 3M brand Scotch tape since you just used up the last roll repairing that piece of paper you ripped. You will not need to remind yourself to buy more glue, since obviously, you did not need any glue to repair that ripped piece of paper. Wait, what was I talking about again?" said Mr. Espinoza before looking around puzzled, turning slowly and walking away.