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The article considers the environmental impact of reusable bags in terms of climate change, but I would speculate that's not how most people would frame the ben
by a_shovel 4y ago
The article considers the environmental impact of reusable bags in terms of climate change, but I would speculate that's not how most people would frame the benefit, they'd see it as a benefit because it reduces the amount of plastic waste.
I see this trend where environmentalist writing will try to convert every "environmental" change into a single unit, some kind of "Equivalent Trees Saved". The environment is too complex for something like that. Plastic waste isn't meaningfully convertible to CO2 emissions for the purposes of environmental impact, and deforestation, oil/chemical spills, and invasive species aren't either.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- throwaway0a5e 4y agoExcept that it doesn't. Tough brown paper and cardboard is made from the trashiest of trashy recycled paper material. All you're doing by eliminating paper bags or cardboard is reducing the number of times that a tree will benefit anyone from the time it is cut to the time it is either land-filled or burned. If you want to see a larger fraction of paper and pulp products "go around again" then you need to do things that increases the market size of the low end products that get made with the source materials that can't be made into anything else.