Just don’t throw them into the ocean. But that much should have been obvious.
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.
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.