3 ms·

Paper bags are incredibly inefficient, and requires large swaths of forest. Plastic bags are incredibly resource efficient, but you must keep it from ever gett

Paper bags are incredibly inefficient, and requires large swaths of forest. Plastic bags are incredibly resource efficient, but you must keep it from ever getting into nature.

davesmith1983 7y ago
Almost all the plastic bags sold from major supermarket chains in the UK were bio-degradable. After a few years they literally turned into dust. I actually had one of these single use bags long enough in a closet for it to degrade to the point where it was basically dried paper mulch.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pflanze 7y ago
  You need to check very carefully before you can conclude they were bio-degradable. I have only seen degradable plastic carry bags in the UK which were not in fact bio-degradable. Traditional plastic bags manufactured to be falling into pieces don't mean that their pieces are good for the environment (rather the inverse). Real bio-degradable bags do exist but they are weaker and feel rubbery, and they are probably more expensive to make and people likely don't appreciate them, so you generally don't see them (the bags distributed by some London councils for collecting compost are of the real kind). See this older comment of mine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10763281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10763281
abainbridge 7y ago
I agree but large swaths of forest are a good thing. In most cases trees are a crop. If we want more of them, then the farmer needs to be able to sell them to someone. By increasing the usage of tree products, we increase the number of trees in existence at any point in time (because the farmer converts some land from a different crop to trees to meet market demand). Also, efficiency isn't everything. If you make something more efficient, then often the saving is passed on to the customer. The customer then spends the money they saved on something else that will have some environmental impact. Or worse, the classic example is plane flight. The industry got a lot more efficient. As a result people can afford to fly a lot more. The environmental impact went up hugely. (Thinking about this now, the efficiency of plastic bags is what made people use so many of them).
- abainbridge 7y ago
  By my logic we can reduce the environmental impact of flying by enforcing a maximum efficiency on jet engines. One much lower than the current efficiency. Hmmm. Probably a carbon tax would be a better idea.
tomp 7y ago
Sure but they literally grow on trees (and from renewable energy as well) and become trees as well. Plastic is only efficient if you discount the cost of recycling (which is pretty much impossible AFAIK so you could say the cost is infinite).

Paper bags are incredibly inefficient, and requires large swaths of forest. Plastic bags are incredibly resource efficient, but you must keep it from ever getting into nature.

davesmith1983 7y ago

Almost all the plastic bags sold from major supermarket chains in the UK were bio-degradable. After a few years they literally turned into dust. I actually had one of these single use bags long enough in a closet for it to degrade to the point where it was basically dried paper mulch.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pflanze 7y ago
You need to check very carefully before you can conclude they were bio-degradable. I have only seen degradable plastic carry bags in the UK which were not in fact bio-degradable. Traditional plastic bags manufactured to be falling into pieces don't mean that their pieces are good for the environment (rather the inverse). Real bio-degradable bags do exist but they are weaker and feel rubbery, and they are probably more expensive to make and people likely don't appreciate them, so you generally don't see them (the bags distributed by some London councils for collecting compost are of the real kind). See this older comment of mine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10763281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10763281

abainbridge 7y ago

I agree but large swaths of forest are a good thing. In most cases trees are a crop. If we want more of them, then the farmer needs to be able to sell them to someone. By increasing the usage of tree products, we increase the number of trees in existence at any point in time (because the farmer converts some land from a different crop to trees to meet market demand). Also, efficiency isn't everything. If you make something more efficient, then often the saving is passed on to the customer. The customer then spends the money they saved on something else that will have some environmental impact. Or worse, the classic example is plane flight. The industry got a lot more efficient. As a result people can afford to fly a lot more. The environmental impact went up hugely. (Thinking about this now, the efficiency of plastic bags is what made people use so many of them).

abainbridge 7y ago
By my logic we can reduce the environmental impact of flying by enforcing a maximum efficiency on jet engines. One much lower than the current efficiency. Hmmm. Probably a carbon tax would be a better idea.

tomp 7y ago

Sure but they literally grow on trees (and from renewable energy as well) and become trees as well. Plastic is only efficient if you discount the cost of recycling (which is pretty much impossible AFAIK so you could say the cost is infinite).