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Comment by kochthesecond | Hacker News Reader

They did a comparison to cloth bags here. you have to use a colored clothbag about 30.000 times before you break even with a plastic bag. a non colored cloth bag was about 23.000 uses. Plastic bags are super efficient with regards to resource consumption, but you must never leave them in nature. There is also very little to gain from recycling plastic bags, so you would ideally burn them somewhere close to usage, and use the heat for heating.

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> They did a comparison to cloth bags here. you have to use a colored clothbag about 30.000 times before you break even with a plastic bag.

That study (https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-...) compared the resource consumption of:

1. A plastic bag then reused as a trash bag before discarded.

2. A reused cotton bag where you then also buy separate plastic bags for the trash can.

Sounds fair, as I am required to bag my garbage.

As someone else pointed out, the problem with plastic bags wasn’t resource usage but littering. This study is irrelevant.

If IIRC && this refers to the same research I heard about earlier the it compares the main driver for resource usage for a cotton bag is watering.

According to that research the best option was a sturdier, reusable plastic bag.

That said, I think we should be happy for people that use and reuse cotton bags. This is people that want to do the right thing.

Those numbers over 20k are only for organic cotton though. Standard uncolored cotton as is most common has to be reused 7.100 times.

And the best end of life for plastic bags is not recycling but repurposing them to trash bags.

You are of course correct, I couldn't find the source anymore and I remembered incorrectly.

Source? I find it hard to believe it, I commonly rip plastic bags by having any random thing with not-so-sharp edges (in the tenths of use, nevermind thousands)

I think you've misunderstood. The point isn't comparing to reusability of plastic and cloth. Cloth obviously wins. But if you compare cost per use, plastic is so cheap relative to cloth that its a better to use plastic (assuming proper disposal.)

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