6 ms·

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!”

by gedy 8y ago

gerbilly 8y ago
Ironic because paper bags are recyclable, and nature does it for free!
- giarc 8y ago
  Analysis has shown plastic bags are actually better for the environment than paper bags. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-plastic-bag-bans-garbage https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-...
  - imgabe 8y ago
    > A 2011 study by the U.K. government found a person would have to reuse a cotton tote bag 131 times before it was better for climate change than using a plastic grocery bag once. 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.
    - lohszvu 8y ago
      Used once is referring to plastic bags used to hold groceries and then immediately thrown out. (Not used more than once: ie a garbage bag, pick up dog poop, etc) 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.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - Scoundreller 8y ago
        > Used once is referring to plastic bags used to hold groceries and then immediately thrown out. 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).
        tgb 8y ago
        How many garbage bags do you use per week? Just for myself I'd buy I guess ten bags of groceries a week and maybe three bags of trash a week. It doesn't add up. 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.
        wccrawford 8y ago
        We used to have a surplus of plastic bags before we started making a concerted effort to use cloth bags. (I don't know what they're actually made of, but they're designed for re-use.) Now, we actually run out of plastic bags that we used to use for various things like dog-poop (when we run out of smaller bags and forget to re-order), small bin liners, and general transportation needs. (Though for the latter, we almost always get to re-use the plastic bag again afterwards.) 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.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - db48x 8y ago
      Turn it around and see if this makes more sense: for the pollution caused by making one cotton bag you could have made 131 plastic bags. This means that if you fail to use your cotton bag 131 or more times, you've created more pollution than you have saved.
      - imgabe 8y ago
        Why wouldn't you use it more times than that? They last years. That's ~2 years of weekly grocery trips. And each usage is going to replace 2-3 of the smaller, weaker plastic bags, maybe more.
        db48x 8y ago
        Of course most people who purchase cotton bags intend to use them many times. The study that was quoted simply quantified how much reuse is required to make them worth it, and it turns out that this is a surprising number to many people. Plastic bags are really cheap, and growing cotton is more expensive than it would seem.
      - _ph_ 8y ago
        The problem we are talking about isn't the pollution creating the plastic bags but their disposal in the deep sea.
      - codingdave 8y ago
        OK, lets run with that scenario. 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.
        weberc2 8y ago
        Somehow many of our cotton bags get lost probably well before they've seen 131 uses. :(
    - jackjeff 8y ago
      > they are always going to be entering the environment they'll end up in land fill or recycled? The environment will never see them, at the very least they will never end up in the sea... If I recall correctly most of the plastic bags come from developing countries that do not dispose of any of their garbage properly anyway.
    - giarc 8y ago
      But when you ban plastic bags, people still use plastic bags. They actually buy thicker plastic bags instead of reusing the grocery bags. "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.
  - CelestialTeapot 8y ago
    The problem with trash is that it will always find its way into the ocean. Would you rather have a natural product (paper) break down in the ocean, or a plastic product[1] that will leave behind micro-plastics that have unknown health impacts? 1. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/biodegradable-plastic-bags-survive-three-years-in-soil-and-sea https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/biodegra...
  - Arnt 8y ago
    You can always make x better than y by choosing the criteria that define "better". 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.
  - stickfigure 8y ago
    I love Planet Money, but that article was pretty terrible. 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".
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
      > Which is worse, more CO2 or more litter in 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.
      - stickfigure 8y ago
        If we were trading off "all excess CO2" for "all litter" I might agree with you, but we're measuring the impact of the CO2 involved in nonplastic bag production vs the litter from all plastic bags. 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.
chrisseaton 8y ago
Well they’re reusable, which is even better than recyclable. They also use less materials to make and are stronger for the same weight, so they also reduce, which is better still. Just don’t throw them into the ocean. But that much should have been obvious.
- libraryatnight 8y ago
  I don't know what kind of plastic bag it was, but the grocery bags we get where I live start to develop holes rather quickly so they're not actually reusable. They also aren't allowed in my city's recycle bins because they apparently just get stuck in the sorting machines and cause all kinds of issues. 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.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    I reuse the paper grocery bags. They can usually be used 10 times or more before they disintegrate, then I use them again as trash bags. I wonder why I've never heard anyone mention this. 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.
    - jdsully 8y ago
      The grocery store loves you. Bags are a major expense for them - unless you’re in an area where they get to charge. The only potential issue is extra scrutiny from loss prevention.
astura 8y ago
...so is paper...?
bluedino 8y ago
We used a paper bag inside of a plastic bag. Won't rip (and you can't see the contents through the bag), and you get handles as a bonus.
simongr3dal 8y ago
Many plastics can be recycled to a certain extent, some can even be composted, and if they can't they can be burned for their energy and heat. Trouble is that we choose to dump them instead.
ip26 8y ago
People today seem to look back and think the tree-hugging era of moving away from wood products was misguided, but today we are blessed with generally having moved past the "gobble-gobble" era of logging. It's not perfect but timber is far more renewable & sustainably managed today than fifty years ago.
- tsomctl 8y ago
  Largely because most of the remaining old growth is locked up in parks, wilderness area, or private reserves.
bribroder 8y ago
http://www.allaboutbags.ca/papervplastic.html http://www.allaboutbags.ca/papervplastic.html > 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-plastic-bag-bans-garbage https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-...

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!”

by gedy 8y ago

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!”

gerbilly 8y ago

Ironic because paper bags are recyclable, and nature does it for free!

giarc 8y ago
Analysis has shown plastic bags are actually better for the environment than paper bags. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-plastic-bag-bans-garbage https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-...
- imgabe 8y ago
  > A 2011 study by the U.K. government found a person would have to reuse a cotton tote bag 131 times before it was better for climate change than using a plastic grocery bag once. 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.
  - lohszvu 8y ago
    Used once is referring to plastic bags used to hold groceries and then immediately thrown out. (Not used more than once: ie a garbage bag, pick up dog poop, etc) 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.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Scoundreller 8y ago
      > Used once is referring to plastic bags used to hold groceries and then immediately thrown out. 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).
      - tgb 8y ago
        How many garbage bags do you use per week? Just for myself I'd buy I guess ten bags of groceries a week and maybe three bags of trash a week. It doesn't add up. 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.
      - wccrawford 8y ago
        We used to have a surplus of plastic bags before we started making a concerted effort to use cloth bags. (I don't know what they're actually made of, but they're designed for re-use.) Now, we actually run out of plastic bags that we used to use for various things like dog-poop (when we run out of smaller bags and forget to re-order), small bin liners, and general transportation needs. (Though for the latter, we almost always get to re-use the plastic bag again afterwards.) 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.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - db48x 8y ago
    Turn it around and see if this makes more sense: for the pollution caused by making one cotton bag you could have made 131 plastic bags. This means that if you fail to use your cotton bag 131 or more times, you've created more pollution than you have saved.
    - imgabe 8y ago
      Why wouldn't you use it more times than that? They last years. That's ~2 years of weekly grocery trips. And each usage is going to replace 2-3 of the smaller, weaker plastic bags, maybe more.
      - db48x 8y ago
        Of course most people who purchase cotton bags intend to use them many times. The study that was quoted simply quantified how much reuse is required to make them worth it, and it turns out that this is a surprising number to many people. Plastic bags are really cheap, and growing cotton is more expensive than it would seem.
    - _ph_ 8y ago
      The problem we are talking about isn't the pollution creating the plastic bags but their disposal in the deep sea.
    - codingdave 8y ago
      OK, lets run with that scenario. 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.
      - weberc2 8y ago
        Somehow many of our cotton bags get lost probably well before they've seen 131 uses. :(
  - jackjeff 8y ago
    > they are always going to be entering the environment they'll end up in land fill or recycled? The environment will never see them, at the very least they will never end up in the sea... If I recall correctly most of the plastic bags come from developing countries that do not dispose of any of their garbage properly anyway.
  - giarc 8y ago
    But when you ban plastic bags, people still use plastic bags. They actually buy thicker plastic bags instead of reusing the grocery bags. "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.
- CelestialTeapot 8y ago
  The problem with trash is that it will always find its way into the ocean. Would you rather have a natural product (paper) break down in the ocean, or a plastic product[1] that will leave behind micro-plastics that have unknown health impacts? 1. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/biodegradable-plastic-bags-survive-three-years-in-soil-and-sea https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/biodegra...
- Arnt 8y ago
  You can always make x better than y by choosing the criteria that define "better". 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.
- stickfigure 8y ago
  I love Planet Money, but that article was pretty terrible. 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".
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
    > Which is worse, more CO2 or more litter in 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.
    - stickfigure 8y ago
      If we were trading off "all excess CO2" for "all litter" I might agree with you, but we're measuring the impact of the CO2 involved in nonplastic bag production vs the litter from all plastic bags. 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.

chrisseaton 8y ago

Well they’re reusable, which is even better than recyclable. They also use less materials to make and are stronger for the same weight, so they also reduce, which is better still. Just don’t throw them into the ocean. But that much should have been obvious.

libraryatnight 8y ago
I don't know what kind of plastic bag it was, but the grocery bags we get where I live start to develop holes rather quickly so they're not actually reusable. They also aren't allowed in my city's recycle bins because they apparently just get stuck in the sorting machines and cause all kinds of issues. 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.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  I reuse the paper grocery bags. They can usually be used 10 times or more before they disintegrate, then I use them again as trash bags. I wonder why I've never heard anyone mention this. 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.
  - jdsully 8y ago
    The grocery store loves you. Bags are a major expense for them - unless you’re in an area where they get to charge. The only potential issue is extra scrutiny from loss prevention.

astura 8y ago

...so is paper...?

bluedino 8y ago

We used a paper bag inside of a plastic bag. Won't rip (and you can't see the contents through the bag), and you get handles as a bonus.

simongr3dal 8y ago

Many plastics can be recycled to a certain extent, some can even be composted, and if they can't they can be burned for their energy and heat. Trouble is that we choose to dump them instead.

ip26 8y ago

People today seem to look back and think the tree-hugging era of moving away from wood products was misguided, but today we are blessed with generally having moved past the "gobble-gobble" era of logging. It's not perfect but timber is far more renewable & sustainably managed today than fifty years ago.

tsomctl 8y ago
Largely because most of the remaining old growth is locked up in parks, wilderness area, or private reserves.

bribroder 8y ago

http://www.allaboutbags.ca/papervplastic.html http://www.allaboutbags.ca/papervplastic.html > 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-plastic-bag-bans-garbage https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-...