Bag Most Bags
Paper Versus Plastic
April 2008 | by Lisa Murray
Reprinted with permission from Taste For Life

In the checkout line you hear the question over and over— “paper or plastic?” Here’s what you’re probably thinking: You can recycle paper, so that’s better, right? But you can reuse plastic as a trash bag liner, and no one had to cut down trees to make it, so that’s safer for the environment, right? Which is better?

the scoop on plastic
Plastic bags are made from polyethy-lene (a byproduct of petroleum), so they’re not biodegradable—they will remain intact for thousands of years in a landfill. Of the roughly 500 billion to a trillion plastic bags used worldwide each year, the United States uses 100 billion plastic bags—the fossil fuel equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil.
Less than one percent of these bags gets recycled, leaving the remaining plastic to leach into soil and groundwater, while maiming and killing birds and other creatures. Although plastic bags can be recycled, it’s not always easy to find where to take them. Consequently, almost all of them are simply discarded. Planet Ark, an Australian not-for-profit that promotes environmentally friendly practices, estimates that more than 200,000 plastic bags go into landfills every hour.

Marine life is especially hard hit by the effects of plastic bag debris, with an estimated 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles killed each year due to ingesting the bags. Recent studies show that the oceans are full of tiny fragments of these bags, which are beginning to work their way up the food chain. In some areas of the ocean, plastic bag fragments greatly outweigh plankton.

the scoop on paper
The production of paper bags requires the destruction of many trees that then have to go through a long, environmentally taxing process to become paper. Machinery is used to cut trees and remove logs from the forest floor—a procedure that requires fossil fuels as well as the creation and use of roads that stress forest ecology and wildlife. Pulp must be made, washed, and bleached, which uses tremendous amounts of clean water. Chemicals, high energy usage, fossil fuels, air pollution, and forest upheaval all add up when calculating paper’s environmental impact. And that’s just to make a new paper bag. After it’s used, it can then end up in a landfill where it can take years to break down. Or it can be recycled, where it must be turned back into pulp and de-inked, with the use of chemicals, clean water, and more energy usage.

Yet paper bags hold more groceries than plastic bags, so you use fewer of them (one paper bag can hold the same volume as three to four plastic bags). Paper bags can be made from 100 percent recycled content, and as a natural material, they’re considered CO2 neutral. They’re universally accepted in curbside recycling and can break down if accidentally littered. Still, their production uses more energy than plastic, and it pollutes our water and air.

what can we do?
The solution lies not in continuing the plastic v. paper debate but in shifting the question to “Is there an alternative?” The answer is yes—reusable cloth or canvas bags. Whereas the average reusable-bag consumer uses only four bags per year, the average disposable-bag user goes through more than 700 bags a year. One reusable bag requires only a bit more energy to produce than one disposable bag, translating into enormous energy savings. And one reusable bag can hold more than three times the amount of groceries than a plastic bag can, further maximizing resources.

Besides being the obvious choice in terms of environmental responsibility, there are other perks to reusable bags. Cloth bags are sturdier than disposables—meaning no more bag explosions in the parking lot! You’ll need fewer bags since reusables hold more than disposables, so it’ll take less time to load them into your car. And you’ll probably find that your reusable bags become welcome multitaskers, as they can double for beach, gym, and lunch totes. Purchase reusable bags in the store that brings you this magazine—if you can’t find them, ask.

If you think deciding what type of bag to use is tricky, here’s what’s at the core: What healthy foods are you putting in the bag?

selected sources

• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Green Living by Trish Riley ($16.95, Alpha, 2007)
• “The Great Plastic Bag Plague” by Tara Lohan, www.alternet.org, 9/5/07
• www.cawrecycles.org
• www.earthwisebags.com
• “Paper v. Plastic—The Shopping Bag Debate,”www.greenfeet.net
• “Paper or Plastic—What’s the Greener Choice?” by Anne Thompson, www.msnbc.msn.com, 5/7/07
• www.reusablebags.com
• www.techalive.mtu.edu
• “Paper, Plastic, or Prada?”by Lisa McLaughlin, www.time.com, 8/2/07