4 ms·
Looking at a full lifetime you need to reuse cloth bags thousands of times to break even on their higher impact. For sturdier plastic reusable bags you need to
by readams 5y ago
Looking at a full lifetime you need to reuse cloth bags thousands of times to break even on their higher impact. For sturdier plastic reusable bags you need to reuse them a few hundred times to break even.
- derriz 5y agoCould you explain what you mean? I find it hard to believe that the environmental impact of one sturdier plastic bag is equivalent to hundreds of slightly flimsier bags. I’ve shopped in a few European countries, and found the reusable plastic bags have maybe twice or three times the mass of the “non-reusable” one. I can’t see how they would have multiple orders of magnitude environment impact.
- ShroudedNight 5y agoI have not yet verified the references, but this SciShow episode seems to propose exactly that: https://youtu.be/JvzvM9tf5s0 https://youtu.be/JvzvM9tf5s0
- derriz 5y agoMaybe I'm quoting the wrong part of the video but he suggests you need to use the re-usable heavy bag six times not hundreds of times to equalise the environmental impact? This looks about right to me - he's comparing with the very heaviest re-usable plastic bags which I could imagine have at least 6 times the mass of the single use bags. I typically use the lighter re-usables plastic bags - unless I need to carry a lot of heavy stuff - which are maybe half the weight/thickness of the ones he uses for the comparison.
- ShroudedNight 5y agoYou're correct, it appears I was conflating reusable plastic with cotton canvas. The multiplier goes up for "Total environmental impact" - but 'only' to 54x on average.