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"unless you reuse the reusable bags thousands of times." That is not what the report in that article says[1]. In Table IV, for a conventional cotton bag, it h
by Ottolay 6y ago
"unless you reuse the reusable bags thousands of times."
That is not what the report in that article says[1]. In Table IV, for a conventional cotton bag, it has to be re-used 52 times in order to equal the LDPE plastic bag in the climate change metric.
For a woven PP bag (which is the most common plastic re-usable bag in my experience), the numbers it has to be re-used is only 5.
[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-...
- zizee 6y agoThe Verge article references more than the one study. I was referring to the Danish study, which I heard about on this planet money episode: 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-... > 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. The Danish government recently did a study that took into account environmental impacts beyond simply greenhouse gas emissions, including water use, damage to ecosystems and air pollution. These factors make cloth bags even worse. They estimate you would have to use an organic cotton bag 20,000 times more than a plastic grocery bag to make using it better for the environment. It would appear I was misremembering somewhat, but I think my point (and the GP's that I was referring to in my earlier comment) still stands: These decisions are often about tradeoffs. Sometimes things can be green on one axis, and not so green on another.