5 ms·

Do cotton bags (not the only option but you seem to enjoy this example) end up being thrown away after a single use? Are they often blown away by the wind and g

Do cotton bags (not the only option but you seem to enjoy this example) end up being thrown away after a single use? Are they often blown away by the wind and get stuck on trees? Do sea turtles mistake them for food? We've been using the same bags (less than 10) for at least a decade.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
If you're the kind of person who throws away plastic bags and doesn't re-use them as trash bags, please have the decency to cut the handles. Do your cotton bags have over 5000 trips to the grocery store over the last decade? If not, you may be carbon negative compared to single-use plastic bags (not counting the re-usability as trash bags).
- ghaff 3y ago
  Meanwhile on this planet, the micron thick Walmart plastic plastic bags are not usefully reused as trashbags; and neither are most of the others. I don't really have a use in general for plastic bags that small and fragile except maybe in the car from time to time. To a first approximation, no one is cutting the handles and, even if they don't just toss them on the road, plenty of them surely end up blowing away out of municipal trashcans, etc. So the choice is not between reusable bags and plastic bags that are properly disposed of and repurposed, it's between reusable bags and plastic bags that are haphazardly disposed of. But maybe haphazardly disposed of plastic bags are fine. That's just the real comparison point.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    A lot of those bags get re-used to line small trash bins and dispose of dog poop (or other gross things like rotten food), despite how thin they are. You may be privileged enough to pay for bin liners and dedicated dog poop bags, but they are an extraneous expense for many people when plastic bags will do. I agree that nobody is cutting the handles, but the reuse is a lot more prolific than you think. Even so, they are indisputably more environmentally friendly than cotton bags.

pclmulqdq 3y ago

If you're the kind of person who throws away plastic bags and doesn't re-use them as trash bags, please have the decency to cut the handles. Do your cotton bags have over 5000 trips to the grocery store over the last decade? If not, you may be carbon negative compared to single-use plastic bags (not counting the re-usability as trash bags).

ghaff 3y ago
Meanwhile on this planet, the micron thick Walmart plastic plastic bags are not usefully reused as trashbags; and neither are most of the others. I don't really have a use in general for plastic bags that small and fragile except maybe in the car from time to time. To a first approximation, no one is cutting the handles and, even if they don't just toss them on the road, plenty of them surely end up blowing away out of municipal trashcans, etc. So the choice is not between reusable bags and plastic bags that are properly disposed of and repurposed, it's between reusable bags and plastic bags that are haphazardly disposed of. But maybe haphazardly disposed of plastic bags are fine. That's just the real comparison point.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  A lot of those bags get re-used to line small trash bins and dispose of dog poop (or other gross things like rotten food), despite how thin they are. You may be privileged enough to pay for bin liners and dedicated dog poop bags, but they are an extraneous expense for many people when plastic bags will do. I agree that nobody is cutting the handles, but the reuse is a lot more prolific than you think. Even so, they are indisputably more environmentally friendly than cotton bags.