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I suspect it's just an issue of phrasing. Plastic bags were adopted in favor of paper largely because of cost, but companies also asserted moral superiority be

I suspect it's just an issue of phrasing. Plastic bags were adopted in favor of paper largely because of cost, but companies also asserted moral superiority because they truly do use fewer resources, vastly less landfill. Especially when they are reused as bin liners or to pick up waste, plastic bags are vastly more environmentally friendly than any option. To match one-time use plastic bags: - polypropylene bags (most of the green reusable bags found at supermarkets) should be used 37 times - paper bags should be used 43 times - cotton bags should be used 7,100 times https://phys.org/news/2018-08-reuse-bags.html https://phys.org/news/2018-08-reuse-bags.html

methodical 3y ago
Not to negate the information in the provided article (as I certainly don't know enough of the specifics to debate, so feel free to correct me here), but I'm unable to ascertain whether all potential environmental impacts were factored into those numbers. I would think on aspects such as biodegradability, plastic bags would be essentially one of the worse options available when compared to counterparts such as paper and cotton which seem to have a much more straightforward decomposition? At a surface level, the provided article seemed to be comparing environmental impacts from production and recycling alone instead of also accounting for the impact of the large amount of plastic bags that end up as litter.