I’m old enough to remember being berated by a family member for using paper bags instead of plastic bags because, quote: “Plastic is recyclable!”
Just don’t throw them into the ocean. But that much should have been obvious.
And in any case, there is only so much productive land available. Planting a large areas of trees on productive land is likely to displace some other agricultural activity.
When I tried saving them for various uses and noticed they develop holes quickly, I thought maybe that's good - maybe these bags were made to decompose quickly or something, but that's not the case. And now that we know microplastics are inside lots of organisms (including ourselves) I can't help but just feel like plastic is just a nasty SOB.
We've ended up getting a bunch of those cloth re-usable grocery bags and using those. I also use containers rather than zip lock bags. But I doubt I make much of a difference because when I take my morning walks on trash/recycle pickup days I frequently see bins filled to the brim with plastic water bottles where it seems like people just buy multiple cases of water bottles and drink from them like they're cups or soda cans and toss them.
The grocery store has no problem at all with me bringing back the paper bags and stuffing my purchases in them. They've never said a word about it. I never see anyone else do it.
The only potential issue is extra scrutiny from loss prevention.
Why don't they do this everywhere? Is it because customers would throw a fit?
You can reuse small boxes and big coffee cans as the trash cans.
> one study from the Danish government found you'd have to use an organic cloth bag 20,000 times for it to be a better environmental choice than plastic
I think "better" is very subjective here. If we're talking the energy and water to make it, sure. But that probably pales into comparison compared to the produce you'll be putting in those bags anyway.
With all we know about plastic in the environment now, and how ineffective recycling as a strategy is, I think anything that will harmlessly biodegrade in a reasonable amount of time is a better choice than plastic.
(Which is where Denmark is coming from: http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/Denmark_Waste...)
It is a cloth bag. It is something we teach our kids to make from old shirts they grow out of. I know society has moved deep into the paradigm of buying everything and making nothing, but there are some items that make no sense to buy, and cloth bags are one of them.
Don’t throw them in the ocean, don’t throw them in anybody’s backyard, is the problem we now are running into China doesn’t want our trash anymore. Recycling plastics is harder than ever before. Also recycled plastics lose their elasticity which is part of their strength so only 10% of used material can be re-manufactured into new product.
No, they're not.
https://www.thoughtco.com/does-oil-come-from-dinosaurs-10920...
That's a big caveat. Logging equipment doesn't run on paper fuel. It runs on fossil fuel.
> Fiction: Many believe that paper bags are more environmentally friendly than plastic bags because they are made from a renewable resource, can biodegrade, and are recyclable.
> Fact: Plastic shopping bags outperform paper bags environmentally – on manufacturing, on reuse, and on solid waste volume and generation.
Note: plastics industry website, but also see this NPR post which pulls in several independent studies: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-...
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-...
This seems disingenuous. 131 uses of a cotton tote bag doesn't replace 1 plastic bag, it replaces at least 131 plastic bags, if not 2-3x that amount since the tote bags are bigger and sturdier and hold more.
I think the fundamental problem with plastic bags is that since they are 1 or 2 use, they are always going to be entering the environment at a rate faster than they degrade. So there is going to be an ever-increasing buildup of plastic bags in the environment for as long as they go on being used.
So it is comparing 1 reusable bag used 131 times to 131 plastic bags.
Further in the article another study considers plastic bags used more than once, which are much better for the environment.
>I think the fundamental problem with plastic bags is that since they are 1 or 2 use, they are always going to be entering the environment at a rate faster than they degrade. So there is going to be an ever-increasing buildup of plastic bags in the environment for as long as they go on being used.
I think it is much more important to look at scientific studies than what a random person hypothesizes with no evidence to back it up.
What percentage of people do this? We use them as “free” bags for garbage bins that we would otherwise have to buy, or for lunch where you won’t/can’t take an insulated bag (outing or when you won’t go home right after work).
When living with other people, we always accumulated huge numbers of saved plastic bags over the months. I'd recycle them but by myself I use reusable bags and a backpack that helps me carry them back. I get a handful of plastic bags every now and then when I get something without planning and those I put to use like you suggest.
So my answer is: For those who aren't recycling, I'd guess that most people throw bags out. For those who are, it's going to be a smaller number, depending on how hard they try to avoid plastic bags at the market.
I shop once a week, and normally fill 2-3 cotton bags. So I'd have paid off my pollution within a year. Maybe 6 months, as my cotton bags hold twice as much as plastic bags.
Also, not all production of bags is going to have the same level of pollution. We DIY many things in our home, and although we do buy the raw cloth, we sew them together ourselves. I suspect that drops the pollution somewhat.
In which case, I may be in a better place simply by using bags for a few months.
That doesn't sound so bad to me.
If I recall correctly most of the plastic bags come from developing countries that do not dispose of any of their garbage properly anyway.
"What I found was that sales of garbage bags actually skyrocketed after plastic grocery bags were banned," she says. This was particularly the case for small, 4-gallon bags, which saw a 120 percent increase in sales after bans went into effect.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/biodegra...
Making plastic "better" than paper requires ignoring the plastic particles that are building up in our drinking water, the plastic bags that litter the world, etc. Blah.
EDIT: I want to rant. That comparison linked to appears to include the energy to recycle paper in paper's carbon footprint, while it has no such cost for plastic, not even an estimate of what energy could perhaps be required to recycle plastic as well as paper actually us. Sigh.
Sure, if you're trying to optimize for greenhouse emissions, plastic isn't so bad. After all, carbon chains coming out of the ground as oil are going back into the ground as long-term stable plastic!
However, the article readily admits that plastic results in more litter than other bags. Which is worse, more CO2 or more litter in the environment? The article seems to take a position but doesn't really provide any justification.
I get the value of pointing out tradeoffs, but I don't think you can simply conclude that plastic is absolutely "better for the environment".
That one is an easy question to answer. CO2 climate change has the possibility of radically altering human civilization and has the potential to cause millions of deaths. While litter in the environment is bad, it is something humans have dealt with before and will not have nearly the impact.
What percentage of total worldwide CO2 emissions does nonplastic bag production represent? I'm not a subject matter expert, but I would shocked if the portion was more than minuscule. Whereas plastic grocery bags represent a pretty signifiant percentage of litter.
Since this boils down to "how much CO2" vs "how much litter", I really don't find this question easy to answer.
Trouble is that we choose to dump them instead.