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I‘m as much against (single use) plastics as the next guy but what’s the alternative here? Studies have shown multiple times [1], [2] that cotton bags require

I‘m as much against (single use) plastics as the next guy but what’s the alternative here? Studies have shown multiple times [1], [2] that cotton bags require far more energy and water to produce than almost everything else and need to be reused circa 7.100 times for non organic and twenty-thousand times for organic cotton until they surpass plastic bags. I have some cotton bags and they are all produced as cheap as possible and I’m doubting wether they even can be used thousands of times before they disintegrate or some seams come apart. In fact LDPE bags have the lowest environmental impact of them all. Unbleached paper and bipolymer bags come close after that. The recommendation for end of life is always to reuse them as waste/trash bags by the way, recycling plastic bags has a larger environmental impact. So best to use LDPE bags a few times and then reuse as waste bag seems to be the best option. [1] - https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-... [2] - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/life-cycle-assessment-of-supermarket-carrierbags-a-review-of-the-bags-available-in-2006 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/life-cycle-assess...

mehrdadn 7y ago
> what’s the alternative here? Reusable plastic? Or even reusing the same 'single-use' plastic? Or just carry stuff with your hand when you're capable of doing so, even if it's mildly inconvenient. I already do that and I'm glad I don't get a plastic bag for no reason when it's just a handful of things I can carry.
- Fornax96 7y ago
  Don't forget about backpacks. No need to carry anything at all if you can just wear a backpack.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    I feel like walking in and then out of a store with nothing in your hands and a backpack that becomes full with merchandise can look a tad bit shady to be honest. Obviously you'll have a receipt and they can ask you if they care, but I feel like I'd rather not raise eyebrows in the first place unless I have to...
    - tialaramex 7y ago
      The "bag tax" normalises this. Twenty years ago, if I walked into a supermarket to buy one item I would assume I should take a bag (which was "free") and a receipt for the reason you give - it might look shady otherwise. Today I shove it in my pockets and walk out the door. Because of the "bag tax" people don't think "Wow, that guy just stole that" or even "Crazy person, why not use a bag" they think "Oh yeah, good idea, no bag tax".
      - mehrdadn 7y ago
        It's possible, I'm not sure. I'll have to pay more attention to see if it's become normalized where I am. I can't seem to recall seeing people shoving things into their backpacks, but I haven't particularly been paying attention to this either.
    - newsgremlin 7y ago
      Compared to lugging around several bags a backpack is almost a necessity living in a city, I do it all the time. The security guards don't bat an eyelid, the only time I was stopped funnily enough was because a security sticker tag that is found on meat packaging was stuck to my backpack. Causing confusion for both me and the security guard finding nothing in my empty backpack.
    - oftenwrong 7y ago
      In every city I have ever lived in, shopping with a backpack is not unusual. Most people are walking or cycling to the store, and buying a relatively small amount of items.
      - mehrdadn 7y ago
        Shopping with a backpack as in putting stuff in them before you leave? Or merely having them on while you shop? I've done the latter but not the former.
lifeisstillgood 7y ago
Perhaps an alternative is the "old way". bring your own bottle to be filled with milk / wine / oil. Buy meat from the butcher wrapped in paper. Buy bread from a baker wrapped in paper. I remember that all happening as a child But that was expensive time consuming and frequently unhygienic
- sefrost 7y ago
  Bringing refillable containers is also being trialled in the UK and seems to be working well, but it’s very early days. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-49183051 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-49183051
- spullara 7y ago
  Your meat from the butcher isn't wrapped in paper?
  - wtallis 7y ago
    My local grocery store butcher tends to put meat in a plastic bag, then wrap that in paper.
    - test1235 7y ago
      Same - else meat juices will slowly soak the paper and leak out. My fishmonger does the same.
  - lifeisstillgood 7y ago
    finding a butcher (that is not in a large supermarket) is hard going in urban UK
    - have_faith 7y ago
      I'm on the coast and finding a fish monger is like looking for the diamond in the rough.
- 7y ago
m0nty 7y ago
"For a cotton tote to have less environmental impact than a plastic bag, it has to be reused 7,100 times. So why do tote bags have such good PR?" https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/environment/2019/07/how-britain-fell-love-tote-bag-and-why-it-s-dangerous-fiction https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/environment/2019/07/ho...
- lorenzhs 7y ago
  Turns out, because the 7100x number is based on a misunderstanding of the study it's from, and the actual number for climate impact is 52x: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20581751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20581751
  - m0nty 7y ago
    I was wondering about that, so thank you for the clarification. The other issue I had with it was that plastic bags are notorious for ending up in hedgerows and waterways, so there is that secondary impact from being a disposable item, which cotton or hemp bags don't have so much.
- KozmoNau7 7y ago
  That's a gross misunderstanding of what the study actually shows: https://twitter.com/arthurhcyip/status/1115749675762581504 https://twitter.com/arthurhcyip/status/1115749675762581504
calcifer 7y ago
> what’s the alternative here? Not using disposable bags, plastic or not. I live in London and I see a lot of people at my local Sainsbury's with e.g gym bags to carry their stuff. Sure, if you had to get a plastic bag do use it for rubbish, but even then there are biodegradable ones.
grecht 7y ago
Exactly! In many situations, plastic actually is the most environmentally friendly option. If by banning plastic bags the use of paper bags rises, that‘d be counterproductive. But sure, the best thing would be to simply carry groceries in a backpack you already own.
p49k 7y ago
For me, the alternative is to use something that already exists in my house (my backpack, a bag that was already given to me, etc) rather than consuming multiple plastic bags on every trip. Not everyone is going out and buying cotton bags to replace plastic so this seems inaccurate. It’s more about changing habits.
Spellchamp 7y ago
Here in the UK the trend now is to use stronger plastic bags that are more easily reusable as opposed to cloth. We have several in a drawer at home, and I keep one in my rucksack at all times so it gets a lot of use. But I'd be interested to know how much more efficient it is than the cheap thin plastic. While I do my best to reuse it, I'd be surprised if it lasts 100 shops. But what I think the article fails to mention is that it's not about stopping the use of plastic bags, but more about encouraging their reuse instead of just throwing them away. The idea being that if fewer are produced, fewer are likely to end up in the environment.
- dazc 7y ago
  'We have several in a drawer at home' Same here and every so often we end up with so many that they get thrown away to make space. Sometimes it's just not convenient to carry a bag around with you, especially not the 'bag for life' kind that are bulky and can't be carried discreetly in a trouser pocket.
  - older 7y ago
    How about something like this [0]? Weighs 46 grams, 25L volume, supports a 130kg load. [0] https://seatosummit.com/product/travelling-light-shopping-bag/ https://seatosummit.com/product/travelling-light-shopping-ba...
    - patall 7y ago
      Absolutely. I've had one similar to these for about 5 years and used it for almost every shopping trip, including hanging down from my bikes handlebar where they sometimes got into the spokes but still were fine after some cleaning. After those 5 years I lend it to my grandma and she lost the smaller bag you wrap it in and the handle got a bit lose so it needed some sewing. It may not last for 7000 times as others have claimed in this thread but 500 is easily doable. Anyways, absolutely recommended.
    - dazc 7y ago
      Thanks, now on my list of things to buy when I get around to it. ;)
epanchin 7y ago
I didn’t believe it was about energy use. Cotton bags don’t kill fish and break into micro plastics. I’m yet to see a cotton bag floating down the Thames. Like most of my friends, I’ve taken to carrying a rucksack around, with an additional bag-for-life inside. I don’t recall the last time I had to buy an additional bag. I guess I’ve saved around 300 bags in the past year.
- scotty79 7y ago
  > I’m yet to see a cotton bag floating down the Thames. When they are widly used you will. I've used canvas bag from Tesco. It fell apart after few years. I definitely did not use it 7000 times. When plastic bags were free I was reusing them as trash bags if I collected too many of them. Now I'm buying dedicated trashbags. I definitely spend more on plastic bags then I used to. I can only hope part of this money goes towards environmental efforts.
  - MAGZine 7y ago
    Selection bias... I used those bags for garbage too, but the number of bags I received to the number I used for that purpose was not comparable. There was already an abundance. PlanetMoney said you needed to use a bag 131 times to be equivalent, not 7k. I see numbers floating around but no sources. In any case. Reusing a bag not only reduces the bag usage the first time it's used but every subsequent time too. A reusable bags isn't preventing a single plastic bag, it's preventing at least one, probably two, maybe three and possibly four plastic bags each use considering how durable and large they are. Which is to say, you could fit (at most) two double bags of groceries into a single reusable.
  - jasonzemos 7y ago
    > I’m yet to see a cotton bag floating down the Thames. >> When they are widly used you will. But all those cotton bags you see quickly disintegrate back into the biome, while the plastic ones stay plastic for a million years...
    - scotty79 7y ago
thatswrong0 7y ago
I’ve noticed in SF that places are giving me slightly thicker, “reusable” plastic bags in lieu of traditional plastic bags. I don’t know anything about plastics - would those still be LDPE? Because that sounds like the perfect medium
raverbashing 7y ago
- Paper bags - Reusable plastic bags Cotton bags might require more energy but they're essentially biodegradable and don't pose such a threat to wildlife
DownGoat 7y ago
People are missing the point on why you should be using cotton bags instead. Yeah they are more expensive to produce, and it is doubtful if you will ever be able to use the cotton bag enough to balance out the production costs, but that was never the point. It is trash reduction that is the goal, and the impact if the bag is left in nature. The cotton bags are a lot less harmful if they get end up outside in nature compared to plastic bags.
- phildawes 7y ago
  I think the point is that the quantity of CO2e dumped into the atmosphere when you make a cotton bag has a much worse environmental impact than the plastic bag dumped in landfill. [1] https://medium.com/@tabitha.whiting/should-you-swap-plastic-bags-for-tote-bags-to-reduce-your-impact-3f2daf1dacc2 https://medium.com/@tabitha.whiting/should-you-swap-plastic-... "The study estimated that a cotton tote bag’s total carbon footprint was 598.6lb of CO2e. This compared to 3.48lb of CO2e for a standard plastic bag. That means that you would need to use the tote bag 172 times for every 1 time you used the plastic bag."
  - nordsieck 7y ago
    > I think the point is that the quantity of CO2e dumped into the atmosphere when you make a cotton bag has a much worse environmental impact than the plastic bag dumped in landfill. The reason these laws get enacted is because not enough of the plastic bags end up in landfills.
  - mslot 7y ago
    I doubt that's a significant factor in global green house gas production while plastic bags are a significant factor in plastic pollution. This seems like a basic optimization problem. Yes, this approach uses a tiny bit more memory, but a lot less CPU. Running out of memory is a problem, but there are likely other areas where we can save a whole lot more (e.g. eat less meat, don't generate demand for food that was shipped around the world).
  - TuringTest 7y ago
    Yeah, but the problem is that a lot of plastics don't get dumped in landfill. They reach the water, and the micro-plastics enter the food chain and produce a toxic hormonal responses in animals. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-humans-a-microplastic-invasion-may-be-taking-a-toll/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-huma... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6132564/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6132564/
jacquesm 7y ago
The fact that they don't last forever is an advantage.
sirwitti 7y ago
After reading through the results of parent's [1] I'm wondering: Are they simply comparing environmental impact of the bags? If so the numbers might be misleading because if someone buys a plastic bag the number of reuses is very limited. Let's say you buy 10 plastic bags a year for 5 years as compared to reusing 1 cotton bag in the same time period. This would mean that in order to compare the environmental impact of both scenarios over that timeframe you'd need to divide the numbers of the cotton bag by 50 (10 plastic bags for 5 years) to get comparable results. If this logic is correct this would mean that you'd need to reuse a conventional cotton bag 142 times and an organic bag 400 times over 5 years to get the same impact. These numbers sound quite reasonable/realistic to me, assuming other people use their cotton bags as often as we do.
- parsimo2010 7y ago
  The problem with these studies is that you can't just correct the impact of a cotton bag, you also need to correct the impact of the plastic bags. [For me at least] The estimated impact of plastic bags is also wrong, so two wrong estimates aren't going to lead to a correct conclusion unless you get lucky. While plastic bags might get re-used only once, and cotton bags might be more durable, but that isn't the only thing to consider. I re-use nearly all of my plastic bags, but only once. They have limited durability but wide applicability. Cat litter, trash bins in bedrooms and bathrooms, and bundling up oily paper towels in the garage. My waste management service requires that I bag all my trash, and I use my plastic bags from stores for this. If I switched to cotton bags for shopping I would still need plastic bags for my garbage, so if I switched I would actually be hurting the environment. There's no way I'm using cotton bags to bag up my trash and cat poop. I wouldn't be opposed to biodegradable bags from the supermarket though, as long as it isn't something that I have to pay extra for. I know that not everyone re-uses all of their plastic bags, but how many people like me does it take before the world is worse off? Now we're shopping with cotton bags and buying a box of plastic bags to throw our garbage in? What is the loss rate of cotton bags? If I lose one per year am I losing them before getting to the break even point?
- scotty79 7y ago
  > If this logic is correct It is not. If canvas bag costs 7000 plastic bags then you have to use it 7000 thousand times like you would use a plastic bag to get the same impact. It doesn't matter how often you use it. If you divide 7000 by 50 you are just saying you have to use canvas bag like you used 50 canvas bags, 140 times. Since you got 5 years of groceries out of those 50 bags you'd need 5*140 years to get 140 as much of utility out of canvas bag.
hannob 7y ago
> Studies have shown multiple times [1], [2] that cotton bags require far more energy and water to produce than almost everything else and need to be reused circa 7.100 times for non organic and twenty-thousand times for organic cotton until they surpass plastic bags. This "7000 times" number is based on a misrepresentation of a danish study. See here: https://twitter.com/arthurhcyip/status/1115749675762581504 https://twitter.com/arthurhcyip/status/1115749675762581504 tl;dr 7000 times worse is for one category (ozone depletion) of the overall impact.
- lorenzhs 7y ago
  Thanks, that clears up a lot. According to that tweet thread, the number for climate impact is 52x. That's just one year of weekly use, which is a pretty realistic number.
adrianN 7y ago
I wonder how hemp bags would compare.
- oblio 7y ago
  Even better than hemp, raffia: https://m.alibaba.com/product/60477650237/Waterproof-PP-Woven-Shopping-Bag-Raffia.html?s=p&spm=a2706.7843667.1998817009.5.7c7a5c91yrHySn https://m.alibaba.com/product/60477650237/Waterproof-PP-Wove... If my very poor grandparents could afford them 40 years ago in Communist Romania, they must be cheap. I can vouch for them being practical, well woven ones last decades.
  - Jaruzel 7y ago
    I think these are similar to the 'heavy duty' 'bag for life' type bags solid in my local Waitrose.
  - aitchnyu 7y ago
    The item you shared is apparently polypropelene. And Google turns up exotic handbags.
    - oblio 7y ago
      Yeah, you're right, I was mistaken. I believe it was polypropylene. Still better for the environment than normal plastic, I'd say.
- andygates 7y ago
  Personally, hemp doesn't wear as well as cotton. Cotton just keeps on going, hemp wears out fairy fast.
ChrisRR 7y ago
In the UK, single-use bags have pretty much been replaced with strong re-usable bags at the checkout. They tend to cost 10p each.
FranOntanaya 7y ago
I'm sure energy and agricultural water are easier to manage environmentally than plastic pollution.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
We bought some reusable cotton when the ban first came in, and they're all still going. We have a few of the heavier weight plastic too> As yet only one has failed and that was one of the throwaway style but simply thicker. The better ones have stitched reinforcement and handles and seem like they'll go indefinitely. We used to get so many disposable bags that we had never in a decade or two bought bin bags, and still managed to keep accumulating. Now we have to buy those, although we try to keep use to the absolute minimum by being creative with the unavoidable plastic we do get. It's a bit frustrating. I'd prefer paper and card once again, as those tended to disappear quite benignly if thrown away carelessly, single use bags were an ugly blight everywhere.
gnopgnip 7y ago
The alternative is bags that dont end up as litter, either because they cost more and there are less of them, or because they break down
ptah 7y ago
no point in using bags that last many generations for shopping, cotton is better
SllX 7y ago
The best alternative is to not even use a bag. 13 days out of 14, I don’t even need a bag or any other container, but that’s in part due to some lifestyle choices that put me in walking distance of a good grocery. The next best alternative is to already have bags you can use, a backpack that you carry other stuff in for example with some extra room. Beyond that, dedicated cloth bags work, or you can buy paper bags as you need them, and reuse them until they’re too worn; or use them as trash bags. Yes, they’ll require more resources to manufacture, but they won’t adversely impact the surrounding environment nearly as much as they degrade, and that has to be balanced against resource usage. If it helps, you can purchase a bag that already exists from a thrift shop or some other secondhand store so long as it seems sturdy enough and easy to clean. It’s been broken in already, seen actual use, and isn’t going to encourage the manufacture of a new bag to take its place once bought, or give more money to the original manufacturer. A cloth bag can also be repaired, seams can be sewn up, and any holes that appear can be patched up. A badly beaten up bag can be saved as a resource to repair the other bags with, as can any other tattered clothes you might have. Also consider baskets, as in old fashioned woven baskets. It only recently occurred to me so I haven’t thought this one through, but this entire conversation is built around the dichotomy of reusable versus single use bags. Baskets as a means of transporting groceries doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s radar or in any of these discussions. Supermarkets sometimes have leftover shipping boxes that you can pack your groceries in as well, but depends on the market. If you order a lot online, you might even have a number of boxes of your own you can save for your next grocery run. The point of these bag fees, at the end of the day, isn’t to force people to pay a fee, or to specifically buy reusable bags. The point is force people to be conscientious about their bag usage and to consider a change of habits, and some other alternatives to just accepting the otherwise complementary bags that you don’t have to even think about taking.
- kevingrahl 7y ago
  I haven’t even thought about those wooden woven baskets! But I suspect you‘d need two of them to equal the storage of a single standard plastic bag. And more than two baskets should be hard to carry.
  - 7y ago
frobozz 7y ago
Many things are delivered to the supermarkets in cardboard boxes. Many supermarkets leave those boxes in a box or cage near the tills.
- Jaruzel 7y ago
  I haven't seen that being done in the UK for over 10 years. Wonder why they stopped doing it?
  - frobozz 7y ago
    My local Aldi normally has a box of boxes in most aisles. My local Tesco has it (unhelpfully, considering how many tills there are) near the exit. I suspect that part of it is that many of the boxes are now trays designed for shelf display. The shelf-stacker just unwraps it and puts it on the shelf. This also makes the boxes slightly less useful for putting your shopping in, as the original contents were held in place by plastic wrap.
- theriddlr 7y ago
  They do and people are able to ask for them to use as boxes for moving house.
lultimouomo 7y ago
In Italy all supermarkets and grocery shops now use biodegradable bioplastic bags. They are not very strong so you need to use more of them, so you don't fill each one too much. You can then use them to collect compostable waste. I have no clue how much energy producing them requires, but if they work as advertised they seem to solve the after-use-pollution problem.
mikekchar 7y ago
I read [2] because that seems to be the one that discusses the numbers you present. The number of reuses for cotton bags that you need to make up for climate change reasons is 52 for conventional cotton and 149 for conventional cotton. The 7,100 number for conventional cotton and 20K for organic cotton is for impact to ozone depletion alone. If you remove that, then the next biggest impact is for water usage which is 1,400 for conventional and 3,800 for cotton. I do not believe that the ozone depletion due to the production of cotton is an issue that is causing a problem. A google search of "ozon depletion cotton" turned up only this paper for me. Water usage of cotton processing is a concern and it is well documented. However, I have cotton T-shirts. In fact, I have more cotton T-shirts than I really need. If we need to reduce cotton usage (and I think that's a pretty good idea), then we should aim at that directly. The increase in cotton production from carrier bags will have a minimal impact on total cotton production. If we are going to reduce cotton useage let's do it for things that are less important than reusable carrier bags. Finally, I have a carrier bag that my wife made me 5 years ago. It is still in perfect condition. I use it every single day. I expect to use it for at least another 5 years , if not 10. From the paper: "The number of times for “all indicators” refers to the highest number of reuse times among those calcu- lated for each impact category. For light carrier bags (LDPE, PP, PET...) the high numbers of reuse times are given by a group of impact categories with similar high values. Conversely, for composite and cotton the very high number of reuse times is given by the ozone depletion impact alone. Without considering ozone depletion, the number of reuse times ranges from 50 to1400 for conventional cotton, from 150 to 3800 for organic cotton, and from 0 to 740 for the composite material bag. The highest number is due to the use of water resource, but also to freshwater and terrestrial eutrophication. Results for the number of reuse times for each impact category, minimum-maximum ranges and average number of reuse times are provided in Appendix C."
- patall 7y ago
  The point you are making is great in regard that using a newly made cotton bag is obviously quite wasteful if you could just sew close the neck and arm holes in a larger old t-shirt you no longer use, add some handles and be done. I have gotten quite a number of cotton bags as goody bag from conferences (over the last 2 years some have even started handing out simple backpacks) and those are obviously bad but a proper cotton bag that you buy and use intentionally easily lasts 500 times.
MrMoenty 7y ago
The question is whether the reduced plastic pollution will make it worth it to slightly increase CO2 output on grocery bags. Given that the absolute cost in CO2 equivalent for a cotton bag is only 3.9kg according to the study you linked, I'd argue that it is negligible compared to the costs of plastic pollution. Ultimately, this seems like a tiny contribution to climate change, but a huge improvement in terms of pollution.
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
I've been using my bag for >12 years. The brand is "Freitag" (which should date it for those in the know), and it's made from up-cycled truck tarpaulins.
rtpg 7y ago
If you live in a city and are doing your shopping close to your house, you can[] just carry stuff with your hands? Or throw it into the backpack you're already using to carry other stuff if you shop coming home from school/work. [] there are definitely people where this is less feasible. I think the bulk of the waste is from people where it _is_ feasible.
RowanH 7y ago
Since New Zealand started cracking down on single use plastic bags - your habits change massively. Go to the beer store and pick up a couple of cans of craft brew? 1 year ago I would get them in a bag. Now? Just hold onto them you lazy bugger between the counter, the car, and when you get home. Various forms of other bags constantly reused.
PinkMilkshake 7y ago
> disintegrate or some seams come apart Don’t throw them away when this happens. Sew them back together.
KozmoNau7 7y ago
I've gotten second-hand information about the first study, and the guy who wrote it says he's being misinterpreted. His study only looks at a very narrow invironmental impact, namely the production costs and impacts. It is not a full cradle-to-grave study, it does not cover environmental impact from improper disposal, nor a host of other factors. The most important missing factor is the fact that cotton bags can be repaired and repurposed. I have a handful of heavyweight cotton bags (the oldest my grandpa bought sometime before I was born), only one of which I've purchased myself. They're all holding up very well, some of them with decades of use, and if they ever start to fray in the stitching or wear out, I can patch them very easily. Alternative, worn-out bags can be used as patches for other items or cut into cleaning cloths and similar things. We need to move away from our single-use-then-throw-away lifestyles and relearn how to repair and reuse our stuff. As a bonus, cotton bags biodegrade nicely, if they do happen to be discarded by mistake. As for other cotton, I don't just throw out t-shirts because they get a few holes in them. They get repaired or delegated to DIY work or concert duty (shirt with holes are very punk/metal), or if they're too far gone they get turned into DIY band patches or used as cleaning cloths. It's all about getting the most use out of what you buy.
soVeryTired 7y ago
Paper bags?
toofy 7y ago
> ...but what’s the alternative here? It’s really just a lack of imagination. Simply use any of a wide variety of containers which most people already have. Just quickly thinking of containers I have within my house: a bunch of different sized duffle bags, a couple swag bags both stuffed full of other swag bags from conferences, multiple backpacks, various suitcases with handles and wheels, cardboard boxes (which millions of businesses crunch up and throw away), random plastic storage boxes of a dozen different sizes. I’m sure we’re i to walk through my house and garage I’d find a ton more random containers. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m wondering why suitcases aren’t used far more often? While I know some of us probably travel more than the average person, but I wonder what percentage of owned suitcases get taken out of their house more than once year. Anyway, if there is one thing we’re not typically short in, it’s containers to hold stuff. We just need to normalize the idea that they can be used for more than one purpose.
zapnuk 7y ago
You seem to leave out the results of the second study, and slightly misrepresent the numbers you state. The second study focusses on global warming potential (kg CO2 eq.). It states that Cotton bags break even with the most efficient solution "HDPE with 100% reused as bin litters" at 327 times, and "HDPE reused 3 times" at 393. The explanation of the 7.100+20.000 numbers of the first study is incomplete. They refer to ALL impact categories. Not just energy and water requirements. If we focus on the climate change impact (kg CO2), cotton breaks even at 52/149 reuses. Obvioulsly you'd have to consider the total impact at some point. Here, their methology is important. They say that: "Cotton bags are assumed to be manufactured in Europe, but the cotton used for the manufacturing is assumed to be retrieved from the market. The dataset used for cotton pro-duction (Ecoinvent, version 3.4, consequential) is based on a global average based on inputs from China, India, Latin America, and Turkey." (page 39). The cotton production should be the greatest reason for the bad environmental impact considering all impact categories. Shouldn't it? The countries listed aren't really known for their environmental friendly policies. The menufactoring process itself is just some rather simple sewing. Both studies also seem to NOT consider the environmental impact of plastic bags being thrown away. Which should be important as their aren't biodegradable. I think the overall impact of non-plastic bags leaves room for discussion/further research. Based on the global warming potentiall, cotton bags seem like a good alternative. Reuse rates of 50-400 are realistic. There are also different materials like jute or hemp where the production should be more environmentally friendly compared to cotton with similar perks (high reuse rate, biodegradable). Hanf can even be grown in Europe/NA such that there is less CO2 impact due to transport.
pjc50 7y ago
This is both the challenge for and simplification possible by proper carbon taxes. If you apply the carbon tax either at the well, or the point of fuel consumption, and do so internationally to avoid it being arbitraged away, then we can stop doing all these complicated calculations and look at the end price of the thing.
olau 7y ago
> "and need to be reused circa 7.100 times for non organic" No. The conclusion in that study is flawed. They compared across a range of different dimensions, and then took the worst dimension they could find and used that scale only. That's bullshit. Miljøstyrelsen took some flak over it.
badpun 7y ago
> I‘m as much against (single use) plastics as the next guy but what’s the alternative here? Strong, reusable plastic bags? I'm using those for years and they're as good as the cotton ones.
marble-drink 7y ago
Multiple-use plastics. You can use a plastic bag way more than a few times.
wastedhours 7y ago
It's not even that though - with the 5p charge and them not being the default, I've stopped using them in instances where I wouldn't have needed them, but would have taken them anyway. I'd always get a plastic bag with my £3 meal-deal from Tesco, but since it came in, I've just carried the stuff. Haven't delved into the numbers yet, but am assuming they don't take into account recycled cotton, or if they're upcycled from other products. As for non-cotton alternatives - heavy duty plastic bags (i.e. Ikea ones or "bag for life"), rucksacks or handbags, re-used boxes, personal trolleys, etc... there are dozens of alternatives to single use plastics. We still do get single use plastics for meat sales, and I reuse them as my bathroom bin-liners, so still have double duty without the dozens of other pointless plastic bags per trip My counter anec-data: I got a canvas tote bag from the coffee festival years ago, its usage is easily in the 4 figures now, and still seems strong as an ox.
- oliwarner 7y ago
  A billion times this. If forget a long life bag, I'll either go without or reuse one of the cardboard produce crates that are freely available in many British supermarkets. We then re-reuse those crates at home for craft fun.
  - TomK32 7y ago
    The popular British past time of painting buses on old wooden crates...
- Ntrails 7y ago
  > We still do get single use plastics for meat sales, and I reuse them as my bathroom bin-liners, so still have double duty without the dozens of other pointless plastic bags per trip I may use fewer carrier bags - but I use a hell of a lot more black bin liners over a given time period - and that is a lot more plastic.
  - wastedhours 7y ago
    Were normal shop plastic bags really big enough for your bins? I'm using the same number of full-size bin liners as I was before the ban, and the same number of bags in my smaller bins (which are almost wholly the meat bags). My own anec-data: every place I've ever lived I've needed a much larger bin than could be suitably lined by anything other than a picture-frame bag from The Range. Same with pretty much every other person's house I've been in as well. Not questioning your use case, but I honestly can't picture having a bin that small that a Sainsburys carrier would be at all useful anywhere other than a bathroom or for a tiny corner in a bedroom. That being said, I stand by the point I was alluding to: extra bin liners that are actively paid for is surely less impactful than endless extra bags for shopping, or which only a handful will properly be recycled as bin bags? (As a kid in a 4 person household, I remember our under stairs cupboard basically being full of carrier-bags, they weren't in a landfill, but they certainly weren't all being put to any acceptable use as our "small trash bag" requirement was orders of magnitude less than the number of bags coming into the house.)
liability 7y ago
Using a cloth back seven times is trivial! I've been using mine for seven years. I expect it will last the rest of my life and if my children aren't ungrateful shits this bag will be their inheritance.
- dbatten 7y ago
  7.100 times would be written "7,100 times" in the US. Using a cloth bag 7000 times at one grocery store visit per week is 134 years of bag reuse.
  - liability 7y ago
    Okay I see. (7,000 would actually take about 40 years for me, but I live next to the grocery store and rarely buy fresh food more than a day or two before eating it.) How does the energy needed to produce a grocery bag that will last a lifetime compare to a pair of blue jeans that will be worn out and out of style in five years? Avoiding plastic bags seems like premature optimization.
Blackstone4 7y ago
When I shop, I carry a backpack and/or a medium sized bag. Some of these bags are 5-10 years old and still going strong. I have them sitting in cupboard whether or not I'm using them, the environmental cost of producing has already transpired. In this world, we can definitely be a lot more efficient in how we use our resources.
sprafa 7y ago
so what actually happens in britain is you buy a plastic bag and reuse it to avoid the 5p/10p cost. It's quite smart imo. Same thing is happening with reusable coffee cups which i think is brilliant So yeah paper/cotton bags being used in mass are a not a huge thing here. Plus people reuse them easily hundreds of times.
tomp 7y ago
Not all energy is created equal. Plants (cotton, trees for paper) don't really compete with other energy sources. You just grow them, they "consume" sunlight and CO2, and give us products. Water use could be an issue, but there's plenty of areas of the world that have enough water (yeah if you grow cotton in Saudi Arabia that might be... not the most efficient). (In the future, this might change, but I'm not sure cutting down the forests and paving the planet with solar planets is desirable, even if they're more energy efficient.) Unless of course they're saying that production of bags (from raw material) takes more energy than the whole oil extraction infrastructure... which I find hard to believe.
- abtinf 7y ago
  > You just grow them Is it really that simple?
ktzar 7y ago
We stopped using waste bags a while ago for all residues except food waste (for which the council required potato starch bags). We have containers at home where we place the plastic waste, which we rinse if it's too dirty, and clean the container with a hose if it's smelly after dumping it in the council bin we have in the driveway. It usually requires a bit of thought to stop using 90% of single-use plastic, but my family has found it possible.
smileysteve 7y ago
> what’s the alternative here? The alternative is to reuse the cotton bag that you already have for other purposes. Anecdotally, I use a backpack that I acquired in grade school 20 years ago. I use the same backpack as a day bag for many other types of trips. The zippers fell off track at one point and I had it repaired. It can also carry 20lbs or 40L of food (and on the shoulders instead of the hand) pretty easily. But also, bags made from hemp instead of cotton. Especially if the leaves are used for other purposes and you're using the stalks.
leonroy 7y ago
The negative externalities of plastic bags to the environment after use are currently not priced by bag manufacturers into the product. I’d imagine cotton or hemp bags have a very low environmental impact once they’ve become landfill or worst case ended up in a waterway vs plastic. It’s obviously very complex pricing negative externalities which is why it’s almost never done but something to consider even if cotton bags have a much higher up front cost to produce vs plastic.

mehrdadn 7y ago

> what’s the alternative here? Reusable plastic? Or even reusing the same 'single-use' plastic? Or just carry stuff with your hand when you're capable of doing so, even if it's mildly inconvenient. I already do that and I'm glad I don't get a plastic bag for no reason when it's just a handful of things I can carry.

Fornax96 7y ago
Don't forget about backpacks. No need to carry anything at all if you can just wear a backpack.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  I feel like walking in and then out of a store with nothing in your hands and a backpack that becomes full with merchandise can look a tad bit shady to be honest. Obviously you'll have a receipt and they can ask you if they care, but I feel like I'd rather not raise eyebrows in the first place unless I have to...
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    The "bag tax" normalises this. Twenty years ago, if I walked into a supermarket to buy one item I would assume I should take a bag (which was "free") and a receipt for the reason you give - it might look shady otherwise. Today I shove it in my pockets and walk out the door. Because of the "bag tax" people don't think "Wow, that guy just stole that" or even "Crazy person, why not use a bag" they think "Oh yeah, good idea, no bag tax".
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      It's possible, I'm not sure. I'll have to pay more attention to see if it's become normalized where I am. I can't seem to recall seeing people shoving things into their backpacks, but I haven't particularly been paying attention to this either.
  - newsgremlin 7y ago
    Compared to lugging around several bags a backpack is almost a necessity living in a city, I do it all the time. The security guards don't bat an eyelid, the only time I was stopped funnily enough was because a security sticker tag that is found on meat packaging was stuck to my backpack. Causing confusion for both me and the security guard finding nothing in my empty backpack.
  - oftenwrong 7y ago
    In every city I have ever lived in, shopping with a backpack is not unusual. Most people are walking or cycling to the store, and buying a relatively small amount of items.
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      Shopping with a backpack as in putting stuff in them before you leave? Or merely having them on while you shop? I've done the latter but not the former.

lifeisstillgood 7y ago

Perhaps an alternative is the "old way". bring your own bottle to be filled with milk / wine / oil. Buy meat from the butcher wrapped in paper. Buy bread from a baker wrapped in paper. I remember that all happening as a child But that was expensive time consuming and frequently unhygienic

sefrost 7y ago
Bringing refillable containers is also being trialled in the UK and seems to be working well, but it’s very early days. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-49183051 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-49183051
spullara 7y ago
Your meat from the butcher isn't wrapped in paper?
- wtallis 7y ago
  My local grocery store butcher tends to put meat in a plastic bag, then wrap that in paper.
  - test1235 7y ago
    Same - else meat juices will slowly soak the paper and leak out. My fishmonger does the same.
- lifeisstillgood 7y ago
  finding a butcher (that is not in a large supermarket) is hard going in urban UK
  - have_faith 7y ago
    I'm on the coast and finding a fish monger is like looking for the diamond in the rough.
7y ago

m0nty 7y ago

"For a cotton tote to have less environmental impact than a plastic bag, it has to be reused 7,100 times. So why do tote bags have such good PR?" https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/environment/2019/07/how-britain-fell-love-tote-bag-and-why-it-s-dangerous-fiction https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/environment/2019/07/ho...

lorenzhs 7y ago
Turns out, because the 7100x number is based on a misunderstanding of the study it's from, and the actual number for climate impact is 52x: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20581751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20581751
- m0nty 7y ago
  I was wondering about that, so thank you for the clarification. The other issue I had with it was that plastic bags are notorious for ending up in hedgerows and waterways, so there is that secondary impact from being a disposable item, which cotton or hemp bags don't have so much.
KozmoNau7 7y ago
That's a gross misunderstanding of what the study actually shows: https://twitter.com/arthurhcyip/status/1115749675762581504 https://twitter.com/arthurhcyip/status/1115749675762581504

calcifer 7y ago

> what’s the alternative here? Not using disposable bags, plastic or not. I live in London and I see a lot of people at my local Sainsbury's with e.g gym bags to carry their stuff. Sure, if you had to get a plastic bag do use it for rubbish, but even then there are biodegradable ones.

grecht 7y ago

Exactly! In many situations, plastic actually is the most environmentally friendly option. If by banning plastic bags the use of paper bags rises, that‘d be counterproductive. But sure, the best thing would be to simply carry groceries in a backpack you already own.

p49k 7y ago

For me, the alternative is to use something that already exists in my house (my backpack, a bag that was already given to me, etc) rather than consuming multiple plastic bags on every trip. Not everyone is going out and buying cotton bags to replace plastic so this seems inaccurate. It’s more about changing habits.

Spellchamp 7y ago

Here in the UK the trend now is to use stronger plastic bags that are more easily reusable as opposed to cloth. We have several in a drawer at home, and I keep one in my rucksack at all times so it gets a lot of use. But I'd be interested to know how much more efficient it is than the cheap thin plastic. While I do my best to reuse it, I'd be surprised if it lasts 100 shops. But what I think the article fails to mention is that it's not about stopping the use of plastic bags, but more about encouraging their reuse instead of just throwing them away. The idea being that if fewer are produced, fewer are likely to end up in the environment.

dazc 7y ago
'We have several in a drawer at home' Same here and every so often we end up with so many that they get thrown away to make space. Sometimes it's just not convenient to carry a bag around with you, especially not the 'bag for life' kind that are bulky and can't be carried discreetly in a trouser pocket.
- older 7y ago
  How about something like this [0]? Weighs 46 grams, 25L volume, supports a 130kg load. [0] https://seatosummit.com/product/travelling-light-shopping-bag/ https://seatosummit.com/product/travelling-light-shopping-ba...
  - patall 7y ago
    Absolutely. I've had one similar to these for about 5 years and used it for almost every shopping trip, including hanging down from my bikes handlebar where they sometimes got into the spokes but still were fine after some cleaning. After those 5 years I lend it to my grandma and she lost the smaller bag you wrap it in and the handle got a bit lose so it needed some sewing. It may not last for 7000 times as others have claimed in this thread but 500 is easily doable. Anyways, absolutely recommended.
  - dazc 7y ago
    Thanks, now on my list of things to buy when I get around to it. ;)

epanchin 7y ago

I didn’t believe it was about energy use. Cotton bags don’t kill fish and break into micro plastics. I’m yet to see a cotton bag floating down the Thames. Like most of my friends, I’ve taken to carrying a rucksack around, with an additional bag-for-life inside. I don’t recall the last time I had to buy an additional bag. I guess I’ve saved around 300 bags in the past year.

scotty79 7y ago
> I’m yet to see a cotton bag floating down the Thames. When they are widly used you will. I've used canvas bag from Tesco. It fell apart after few years. I definitely did not use it 7000 times. When plastic bags were free I was reusing them as trash bags if I collected too many of them. Now I'm buying dedicated trashbags. I definitely spend more on plastic bags then I used to. I can only hope part of this money goes towards environmental efforts.
- MAGZine 7y ago
  Selection bias... I used those bags for garbage too, but the number of bags I received to the number I used for that purpose was not comparable. There was already an abundance. PlanetMoney said you needed to use a bag 131 times to be equivalent, not 7k. I see numbers floating around but no sources. In any case. Reusing a bag not only reduces the bag usage the first time it's used but every subsequent time too. A reusable bags isn't preventing a single plastic bag, it's preventing at least one, probably two, maybe three and possibly four plastic bags each use considering how durable and large they are. Which is to say, you could fit (at most) two double bags of groceries into a single reusable.
- jasonzemos 7y ago
  > I’m yet to see a cotton bag floating down the Thames. >> When they are widly used you will. But all those cotton bags you see quickly disintegrate back into the biome, while the plastic ones stay plastic for a million years...
  - scotty79 7y ago

thatswrong0 7y ago

I’ve noticed in SF that places are giving me slightly thicker, “reusable” plastic bags in lieu of traditional plastic bags. I don’t know anything about plastics - would those still be LDPE? Because that sounds like the perfect medium

raverbashing 7y ago

- Paper bags - Reusable plastic bags Cotton bags might require more energy but they're essentially biodegradable and don't pose such a threat to wildlife

DownGoat 7y ago

People are missing the point on why you should be using cotton bags instead. Yeah they are more expensive to produce, and it is doubtful if you will ever be able to use the cotton bag enough to balance out the production costs, but that was never the point. It is trash reduction that is the goal, and the impact if the bag is left in nature. The cotton bags are a lot less harmful if they get end up outside in nature compared to plastic bags.

phildawes 7y ago
I think the point is that the quantity of CO2e dumped into the atmosphere when you make a cotton bag has a much worse environmental impact than the plastic bag dumped in landfill. [1] https://medium.com/@tabitha.whiting/should-you-swap-plastic-bags-for-tote-bags-to-reduce-your-impact-3f2daf1dacc2 https://medium.com/@tabitha.whiting/should-you-swap-plastic-... "The study estimated that a cotton tote bag’s total carbon footprint was 598.6lb of CO2e. This compared to 3.48lb of CO2e for a standard plastic bag. That means that you would need to use the tote bag 172 times for every 1 time you used the plastic bag."
- nordsieck 7y ago
  > I think the point is that the quantity of CO2e dumped into the atmosphere when you make a cotton bag has a much worse environmental impact than the plastic bag dumped in landfill. The reason these laws get enacted is because not enough of the plastic bags end up in landfills.
- mslot 7y ago
  I doubt that's a significant factor in global green house gas production while plastic bags are a significant factor in plastic pollution. This seems like a basic optimization problem. Yes, this approach uses a tiny bit more memory, but a lot less CPU. Running out of memory is a problem, but there are likely other areas where we can save a whole lot more (e.g. eat less meat, don't generate demand for food that was shipped around the world).
- TuringTest 7y ago
  Yeah, but the problem is that a lot of plastics don't get dumped in landfill. They reach the water, and the micro-plastics enter the food chain and produce a toxic hormonal responses in animals. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-humans-a-microplastic-invasion-may-be-taking-a-toll/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-huma... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6132564/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6132564/

jacquesm 7y ago

The fact that they don't last forever is an advantage.

sirwitti 7y ago

After reading through the results of parent's [1] I'm wondering: Are they simply comparing environmental impact of the bags? If so the numbers might be misleading because if someone buys a plastic bag the number of reuses is very limited. Let's say you buy 10 plastic bags a year for 5 years as compared to reusing 1 cotton bag in the same time period. This would mean that in order to compare the environmental impact of both scenarios over that timeframe you'd need to divide the numbers of the cotton bag by 50 (10 plastic bags for 5 years) to get comparable results. If this logic is correct this would mean that you'd need to reuse a conventional cotton bag 142 times and an organic bag 400 times over 5 years to get the same impact. These numbers sound quite reasonable/realistic to me, assuming other people use their cotton bags as often as we do.

parsimo2010 7y ago
The problem with these studies is that you can't just correct the impact of a cotton bag, you also need to correct the impact of the plastic bags. [For me at least] The estimated impact of plastic bags is also wrong, so two wrong estimates aren't going to lead to a correct conclusion unless you get lucky. While plastic bags might get re-used only once, and cotton bags might be more durable, but that isn't the only thing to consider. I re-use nearly all of my plastic bags, but only once. They have limited durability but wide applicability. Cat litter, trash bins in bedrooms and bathrooms, and bundling up oily paper towels in the garage. My waste management service requires that I bag all my trash, and I use my plastic bags from stores for this. If I switched to cotton bags for shopping I would still need plastic bags for my garbage, so if I switched I would actually be hurting the environment. There's no way I'm using cotton bags to bag up my trash and cat poop. I wouldn't be opposed to biodegradable bags from the supermarket though, as long as it isn't something that I have to pay extra for. I know that not everyone re-uses all of their plastic bags, but how many people like me does it take before the world is worse off? Now we're shopping with cotton bags and buying a box of plastic bags to throw our garbage in? What is the loss rate of cotton bags? If I lose one per year am I losing them before getting to the break even point?
scotty79 7y ago
> If this logic is correct It is not. If canvas bag costs 7000 plastic bags then you have to use it 7000 thousand times like you would use a plastic bag to get the same impact. It doesn't matter how often you use it. If you divide 7000 by 50 you are just saying you have to use canvas bag like you used 50 canvas bags, 140 times. Since you got 5 years of groceries out of those 50 bags you'd need 5*140 years to get 140 as much of utility out of canvas bag.

hannob 7y ago

> Studies have shown multiple times [1], [2] that cotton bags require far more energy and water to produce than almost everything else and need to be reused circa 7.100 times for non organic and twenty-thousand times for organic cotton until they surpass plastic bags. This "7000 times" number is based on a misrepresentation of a danish study. See here: https://twitter.com/arthurhcyip/status/1115749675762581504 https://twitter.com/arthurhcyip/status/1115749675762581504 tl;dr 7000 times worse is for one category (ozone depletion) of the overall impact.

lorenzhs 7y ago
Thanks, that clears up a lot. According to that tweet thread, the number for climate impact is 52x. That's just one year of weekly use, which is a pretty realistic number.

adrianN 7y ago

I wonder how hemp bags would compare.

oblio 7y ago
Even better than hemp, raffia: https://m.alibaba.com/product/60477650237/Waterproof-PP-Woven-Shopping-Bag-Raffia.html?s=p&spm=a2706.7843667.1998817009.5.7c7a5c91yrHySn https://m.alibaba.com/product/60477650237/Waterproof-PP-Wove... If my very poor grandparents could afford them 40 years ago in Communist Romania, they must be cheap. I can vouch for them being practical, well woven ones last decades.
- Jaruzel 7y ago
  I think these are similar to the 'heavy duty' 'bag for life' type bags solid in my local Waitrose.
- aitchnyu 7y ago
  The item you shared is apparently polypropelene. And Google turns up exotic handbags.
  - oblio 7y ago
    Yeah, you're right, I was mistaken. I believe it was polypropylene. Still better for the environment than normal plastic, I'd say.
andygates 7y ago
Personally, hemp doesn't wear as well as cotton. Cotton just keeps on going, hemp wears out fairy fast.

ChrisRR 7y ago

In the UK, single-use bags have pretty much been replaced with strong re-usable bags at the checkout. They tend to cost 10p each.

FranOntanaya 7y ago

I'm sure energy and agricultural water are easier to manage environmentally than plastic pollution.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

We bought some reusable cotton when the ban first came in, and they're all still going. We have a few of the heavier weight plastic too> As yet only one has failed and that was one of the throwaway style but simply thicker. The better ones have stitched reinforcement and handles and seem like they'll go indefinitely. We used to get so many disposable bags that we had never in a decade or two bought bin bags, and still managed to keep accumulating. Now we have to buy those, although we try to keep use to the absolute minimum by being creative with the unavoidable plastic we do get. It's a bit frustrating. I'd prefer paper and card once again, as those tended to disappear quite benignly if thrown away carelessly, single use bags were an ugly blight everywhere.

gnopgnip 7y ago

The alternative is bags that dont end up as litter, either because they cost more and there are less of them, or because they break down

ptah 7y ago

no point in using bags that last many generations for shopping, cotton is better

SllX 7y ago

The best alternative is to not even use a bag. 13 days out of 14, I don’t even need a bag or any other container, but that’s in part due to some lifestyle choices that put me in walking distance of a good grocery. The next best alternative is to already have bags you can use, a backpack that you carry other stuff in for example with some extra room. Beyond that, dedicated cloth bags work, or you can buy paper bags as you need them, and reuse them until they’re too worn; or use them as trash bags. Yes, they’ll require more resources to manufacture, but they won’t adversely impact the surrounding environment nearly as much as they degrade, and that has to be balanced against resource usage. If it helps, you can purchase a bag that already exists from a thrift shop or some other secondhand store so long as it seems sturdy enough and easy to clean. It’s been broken in already, seen actual use, and isn’t going to encourage the manufacture of a new bag to take its place once bought, or give more money to the original manufacturer. A cloth bag can also be repaired, seams can be sewn up, and any holes that appear can be patched up. A badly beaten up bag can be saved as a resource to repair the other bags with, as can any other tattered clothes you might have. Also consider baskets, as in old fashioned woven baskets. It only recently occurred to me so I haven’t thought this one through, but this entire conversation is built around the dichotomy of reusable versus single use bags. Baskets as a means of transporting groceries doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s radar or in any of these discussions. Supermarkets sometimes have leftover shipping boxes that you can pack your groceries in as well, but depends on the market. If you order a lot online, you might even have a number of boxes of your own you can save for your next grocery run. The point of these bag fees, at the end of the day, isn’t to force people to pay a fee, or to specifically buy reusable bags. The point is force people to be conscientious about their bag usage and to consider a change of habits, and some other alternatives to just accepting the otherwise complementary bags that you don’t have to even think about taking.

kevingrahl 7y ago
I haven’t even thought about those wooden woven baskets! But I suspect you‘d need two of them to equal the storage of a single standard plastic bag. And more than two baskets should be hard to carry.
- 7y ago

frobozz 7y ago

Many things are delivered to the supermarkets in cardboard boxes. Many supermarkets leave those boxes in a box or cage near the tills.

Jaruzel 7y ago
I haven't seen that being done in the UK for over 10 years. Wonder why they stopped doing it?
- frobozz 7y ago
  My local Aldi normally has a box of boxes in most aisles. My local Tesco has it (unhelpfully, considering how many tills there are) near the exit. I suspect that part of it is that many of the boxes are now trays designed for shelf display. The shelf-stacker just unwraps it and puts it on the shelf. This also makes the boxes slightly less useful for putting your shopping in, as the original contents were held in place by plastic wrap.
theriddlr 7y ago
They do and people are able to ask for them to use as boxes for moving house.

lultimouomo 7y ago

In Italy all supermarkets and grocery shops now use biodegradable bioplastic bags. They are not very strong so you need to use more of them, so you don't fill each one too much. You can then use them to collect compostable waste. I have no clue how much energy producing them requires, but if they work as advertised they seem to solve the after-use-pollution problem.

mikekchar 7y ago

I read [2] because that seems to be the one that discusses the numbers you present. The number of reuses for cotton bags that you need to make up for climate change reasons is 52 for conventional cotton and 149 for conventional cotton. The 7,100 number for conventional cotton and 20K for organic cotton is for impact to ozone depletion alone. If you remove that, then the next biggest impact is for water usage which is 1,400 for conventional and 3,800 for cotton. I do not believe that the ozone depletion due to the production of cotton is an issue that is causing a problem. A google search of "ozon depletion cotton" turned up only this paper for me. Water usage of cotton processing is a concern and it is well documented. However, I have cotton T-shirts. In fact, I have more cotton T-shirts than I really need. If we need to reduce cotton usage (and I think that's a pretty good idea), then we should aim at that directly. The increase in cotton production from carrier bags will have a minimal impact on total cotton production. If we are going to reduce cotton useage let's do it for things that are less important than reusable carrier bags. Finally, I have a carrier bag that my wife made me 5 years ago. It is still in perfect condition. I use it every single day. I expect to use it for at least another 5 years , if not 10. From the paper: "The number of times for “all indicators” refers to the highest number of reuse times among those calcu- lated for each impact category. For light carrier bags (LDPE, PP, PET...) the high numbers of reuse times are given by a group of impact categories with similar high values. Conversely, for composite and cotton the very high number of reuse times is given by the ozone depletion impact alone. Without considering ozone depletion, the number of reuse times ranges from 50 to1400 for conventional cotton, from 150 to 3800 for organic cotton, and from 0 to 740 for the composite material bag. The highest number is due to the use of water resource, but also to freshwater and terrestrial eutrophication. Results for the number of reuse times for each impact category, minimum-maximum ranges and average number of reuse times are provided in Appendix C."

patall 7y ago
The point you are making is great in regard that using a newly made cotton bag is obviously quite wasteful if you could just sew close the neck and arm holes in a larger old t-shirt you no longer use, add some handles and be done. I have gotten quite a number of cotton bags as goody bag from conferences (over the last 2 years some have even started handing out simple backpacks) and those are obviously bad but a proper cotton bag that you buy and use intentionally easily lasts 500 times.

MrMoenty 7y ago

The question is whether the reduced plastic pollution will make it worth it to slightly increase CO2 output on grocery bags. Given that the absolute cost in CO2 equivalent for a cotton bag is only 3.9kg according to the study you linked, I'd argue that it is negligible compared to the costs of plastic pollution. Ultimately, this seems like a tiny contribution to climate change, but a huge improvement in terms of pollution.

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago

I've been using my bag for >12 years. The brand is "Freitag" (which should date it for those in the know), and it's made from up-cycled truck tarpaulins.

rtpg 7y ago

If you live in a city and are doing your shopping close to your house, you can[] just carry stuff with your hands? Or throw it into the backpack you're already using to carry other stuff if you shop coming home from school/work. [] there are definitely people where this is less feasible. I think the bulk of the waste is from people where it _is_ feasible.

RowanH 7y ago

Since New Zealand started cracking down on single use plastic bags - your habits change massively. Go to the beer store and pick up a couple of cans of craft brew? 1 year ago I would get them in a bag. Now? Just hold onto them you lazy bugger between the counter, the car, and when you get home. Various forms of other bags constantly reused.

PinkMilkshake 7y ago

> disintegrate or some seams come apart Don’t throw them away when this happens. Sew them back together.

KozmoNau7 7y ago

I've gotten second-hand information about the first study, and the guy who wrote it says he's being misinterpreted. His study only looks at a very narrow invironmental impact, namely the production costs and impacts. It is not a full cradle-to-grave study, it does not cover environmental impact from improper disposal, nor a host of other factors. The most important missing factor is the fact that cotton bags can be repaired and repurposed. I have a handful of heavyweight cotton bags (the oldest my grandpa bought sometime before I was born), only one of which I've purchased myself. They're all holding up very well, some of them with decades of use, and if they ever start to fray in the stitching or wear out, I can patch them very easily. Alternative, worn-out bags can be used as patches for other items or cut into cleaning cloths and similar things. We need to move away from our single-use-then-throw-away lifestyles and relearn how to repair and reuse our stuff. As a bonus, cotton bags biodegrade nicely, if they do happen to be discarded by mistake. As for other cotton, I don't just throw out t-shirts because they get a few holes in them. They get repaired or delegated to DIY work or concert duty (shirt with holes are very punk/metal), or if they're too far gone they get turned into DIY band patches or used as cleaning cloths. It's all about getting the most use out of what you buy.

soVeryTired 7y ago

Paper bags?

toofy 7y ago

> ...but what’s the alternative here? It’s really just a lack of imagination. Simply use any of a wide variety of containers which most people already have. Just quickly thinking of containers I have within my house: a bunch of different sized duffle bags, a couple swag bags both stuffed full of other swag bags from conferences, multiple backpacks, various suitcases with handles and wheels, cardboard boxes (which millions of businesses crunch up and throw away), random plastic storage boxes of a dozen different sizes. I’m sure we’re i to walk through my house and garage I’d find a ton more random containers. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m wondering why suitcases aren’t used far more often? While I know some of us probably travel more than the average person, but I wonder what percentage of owned suitcases get taken out of their house more than once year. Anyway, if there is one thing we’re not typically short in, it’s containers to hold stuff. We just need to normalize the idea that they can be used for more than one purpose.

zapnuk 7y ago

You seem to leave out the results of the second study, and slightly misrepresent the numbers you state. The second study focusses on global warming potential (kg CO2 eq.). It states that Cotton bags break even with the most efficient solution "HDPE with 100% reused as bin litters" at 327 times, and "HDPE reused 3 times" at 393. The explanation of the 7.100+20.000 numbers of the first study is incomplete. They refer to ALL impact categories. Not just energy and water requirements. If we focus on the climate change impact (kg CO2), cotton breaks even at 52/149 reuses. Obvioulsly you'd have to consider the total impact at some point. Here, their methology is important. They say that: "Cotton bags are assumed to be manufactured in Europe, but the cotton used for the manufacturing is assumed to be retrieved from the market. The dataset used for cotton pro-duction (Ecoinvent, version 3.4, consequential) is based on a global average based on inputs from China, India, Latin America, and Turkey." (page 39). The cotton production should be the greatest reason for the bad environmental impact considering all impact categories. Shouldn't it? The countries listed aren't really known for their environmental friendly policies. The menufactoring process itself is just some rather simple sewing. Both studies also seem to NOT consider the environmental impact of plastic bags being thrown away. Which should be important as their aren't biodegradable. I think the overall impact of non-plastic bags leaves room for discussion/further research. Based on the global warming potentiall, cotton bags seem like a good alternative. Reuse rates of 50-400 are realistic. There are also different materials like jute or hemp where the production should be more environmentally friendly compared to cotton with similar perks (high reuse rate, biodegradable). Hanf can even be grown in Europe/NA such that there is less CO2 impact due to transport.

pjc50 7y ago

This is both the challenge for and simplification possible by proper carbon taxes. If you apply the carbon tax either at the well, or the point of fuel consumption, and do so internationally to avoid it being arbitraged away, then we can stop doing all these complicated calculations and look at the end price of the thing.

olau 7y ago

> "and need to be reused circa 7.100 times for non organic" No. The conclusion in that study is flawed. They compared across a range of different dimensions, and then took the worst dimension they could find and used that scale only. That's bullshit. Miljøstyrelsen took some flak over it.

badpun 7y ago

> I‘m as much against (single use) plastics as the next guy but what’s the alternative here? Strong, reusable plastic bags? I'm using those for years and they're as good as the cotton ones.

marble-drink 7y ago

Multiple-use plastics. You can use a plastic bag way more than a few times.

wastedhours 7y ago

It's not even that though - with the 5p charge and them not being the default, I've stopped using them in instances where I wouldn't have needed them, but would have taken them anyway. I'd always get a plastic bag with my £3 meal-deal from Tesco, but since it came in, I've just carried the stuff. Haven't delved into the numbers yet, but am assuming they don't take into account recycled cotton, or if they're upcycled from other products. As for non-cotton alternatives - heavy duty plastic bags (i.e. Ikea ones or "bag for life"), rucksacks or handbags, re-used boxes, personal trolleys, etc... there are dozens of alternatives to single use plastics. We still do get single use plastics for meat sales, and I reuse them as my bathroom bin-liners, so still have double duty without the dozens of other pointless plastic bags per trip My counter anec-data: I got a canvas tote bag from the coffee festival years ago, its usage is easily in the 4 figures now, and still seems strong as an ox.

oliwarner 7y ago
A billion times this. If forget a long life bag, I'll either go without or reuse one of the cardboard produce crates that are freely available in many British supermarkets. We then re-reuse those crates at home for craft fun.
- TomK32 7y ago
  The popular British past time of painting buses on old wooden crates...
Ntrails 7y ago
> We still do get single use plastics for meat sales, and I reuse them as my bathroom bin-liners, so still have double duty without the dozens of other pointless plastic bags per trip I may use fewer carrier bags - but I use a hell of a lot more black bin liners over a given time period - and that is a lot more plastic.
- wastedhours 7y ago
  Were normal shop plastic bags really big enough for your bins? I'm using the same number of full-size bin liners as I was before the ban, and the same number of bags in my smaller bins (which are almost wholly the meat bags). My own anec-data: every place I've ever lived I've needed a much larger bin than could be suitably lined by anything other than a picture-frame bag from The Range. Same with pretty much every other person's house I've been in as well. Not questioning your use case, but I honestly can't picture having a bin that small that a Sainsburys carrier would be at all useful anywhere other than a bathroom or for a tiny corner in a bedroom. That being said, I stand by the point I was alluding to: extra bin liners that are actively paid for is surely less impactful than endless extra bags for shopping, or which only a handful will properly be recycled as bin bags? (As a kid in a 4 person household, I remember our under stairs cupboard basically being full of carrier-bags, they weren't in a landfill, but they certainly weren't all being put to any acceptable use as our "small trash bag" requirement was orders of magnitude less than the number of bags coming into the house.)

liability 7y ago

Using a cloth back seven times is trivial! I've been using mine for seven years. I expect it will last the rest of my life and if my children aren't ungrateful shits this bag will be their inheritance.

dbatten 7y ago
7.100 times would be written "7,100 times" in the US. Using a cloth bag 7000 times at one grocery store visit per week is 134 years of bag reuse.
- liability 7y ago
  Okay I see. (7,000 would actually take about 40 years for me, but I live next to the grocery store and rarely buy fresh food more than a day or two before eating it.) How does the energy needed to produce a grocery bag that will last a lifetime compare to a pair of blue jeans that will be worn out and out of style in five years? Avoiding plastic bags seems like premature optimization.

Blackstone4 7y ago

When I shop, I carry a backpack and/or a medium sized bag. Some of these bags are 5-10 years old and still going strong. I have them sitting in cupboard whether or not I'm using them, the environmental cost of producing has already transpired. In this world, we can definitely be a lot more efficient in how we use our resources.

sprafa 7y ago

so what actually happens in britain is you buy a plastic bag and reuse it to avoid the 5p/10p cost. It's quite smart imo. Same thing is happening with reusable coffee cups which i think is brilliant So yeah paper/cotton bags being used in mass are a not a huge thing here. Plus people reuse them easily hundreds of times.

tomp 7y ago

Not all energy is created equal. Plants (cotton, trees for paper) don't really compete with other energy sources. You just grow them, they "consume" sunlight and CO2, and give us products. Water use could be an issue, but there's plenty of areas of the world that have enough water (yeah if you grow cotton in Saudi Arabia that might be... not the most efficient). (In the future, this might change, but I'm not sure cutting down the forests and paving the planet with solar planets is desirable, even if they're more energy efficient.) Unless of course they're saying that production of bags (from raw material) takes more energy than the whole oil extraction infrastructure... which I find hard to believe.

abtinf 7y ago
> You just grow them Is it really that simple?

ktzar 7y ago

We stopped using waste bags a while ago for all residues except food waste (for which the council required potato starch bags). We have containers at home where we place the plastic waste, which we rinse if it's too dirty, and clean the container with a hose if it's smelly after dumping it in the council bin we have in the driveway. It usually requires a bit of thought to stop using 90% of single-use plastic, but my family has found it possible.

smileysteve 7y ago

> what’s the alternative here? The alternative is to reuse the cotton bag that you already have for other purposes. Anecdotally, I use a backpack that I acquired in grade school 20 years ago. I use the same backpack as a day bag for many other types of trips. The zippers fell off track at one point and I had it repaired. It can also carry 20lbs or 40L of food (and on the shoulders instead of the hand) pretty easily. But also, bags made from hemp instead of cotton. Especially if the leaves are used for other purposes and you're using the stalks.

leonroy 7y ago

The negative externalities of plastic bags to the environment after use are currently not priced by bag manufacturers into the product. I’d imagine cotton or hemp bags have a very low environmental impact once they’ve become landfill or worst case ended up in a waterway vs plastic. It’s obviously very complex pricing negative externalities which is why it’s almost never done but something to consider even if cotton bags have a much higher up front cost to produce vs plastic.