Paper or Plastic?

[maliakei]

Which do you choose, paper or plastic? Which is better for the enviornment?
I usually choose paper, but both have their drawbacks.

To make paper bags, it takes millions of trees, plus they create more air pollution than plastic bags, but plastic takes forever to disintegrate even though its cheaper to make.

I heard of bio-degradable plastic bags, but haven't seen any.

Either way, I will reuse and recycle. Some grocery stores will even give discounts if you bring your own cloth or canvas bags.

[Lettuceman]

We now use cloth bags. It took us a while to get ourselves in the habit of taking them when we leave home. It sure cut down on the recyling effort for us.

[Steve78621]

I go for plastic, here in Texas they have recycling bins for it in front of the grocery stores you can drop the used bags into. I have old paper bags that I reuse to carry my empty plastic bottles in for recycling. I bought a really nice big orange nylon bag from Home Depot for .99 cents that I take in for my groceries. As soon as I empty it out in my kitchen, out it goes back to the pickup right then so I will have it when I am at the store. When I bought the bag at Home Depot, it was the only thing I bought that visit, so the woman at the checkout counter put it in a plastic bag for me!

[Kouak]

I get and use both. I recycle the bags with holes in them next time I go to the grocery store. I reuse the "no holes" plastic bags. I "double bag" them because I don't trust their sturdiness. I use plastic bags as trash bags in the bathrooms. I also use them for the meat scraps when cooking so I can fill up my regular trash bag in the kitchen and not have the meat scraps stink before the bag fills up.

I reuse the paper bags for the junk mail I still get for recycling and as "trash cans" in the garage, etc. I like reusing paper bags for groceries. They open up as easily the second time as they do the first time.

[Paniga]

Here in Ontario Canada if you dont bring your own reuseable bags, each bag you get will cost you 5cents.

[FireProf]

We don't take them as often as we should but we also have cloth bags. But when we don't...we use plastic. We use the plastic bags for other things so they don't go directly into the trash without more trash in them.

Maybe the charge for using plastic bags would get more of us to bring in our cloth bags on a regular basis. I know my wife would do it to save the money. I'm not usually that..."thrifty!" ;)

FP

[MeBNude]

I'm a cloth bag person myself. I even made myself washable vegetable and fruit bags out of unbleached muslin.

As for charging for bags you don't bring yourself, the City of Seattle just voted down, by a significant margin, a $ .20 per bag fee. Seattle is pretty liberal so it surprised me. Of course, on the one hand it might put a burden on the poor. Or it could have been the the penalty was too high?

[FireProf]

Wow......20 cents a bag.......I think I would have voted that down too! I think some cities and states try and erase their deficit all in one shot as opposed to doing it a little at a time.

The 20 cent a bag charge may have been able to fly if it was done over 3-5 years. I wonder if it was a revenue generating idea or a "green" idea. Either way...my opinion is that 20 cents a bag was too steep for anyone to impose on themselves. ;)

LOL.....I can see it.....we'd vote ourselves a charge for plastic bags and the plastic bag manufacturers would make the bags smaller so we had to have more of them for our groceries........

FP

[Boreas]

I have been using cloth bags for awhile. I will pick up a couple of plastic bags when I need more for the cat litter. I am thinking of alternatives to that though too. We were just in Ontario and it was interesting to see just about everyone using cloth bags. I guess the charge helps. I started using them when they became more visible in the stores as alternatives to plastic. Not as many people in this area use cloth bags......perhaps a charge is a good thing?

[FoUTASportscaster]

Which do you choose, paper or plastic? Which is better for the enviornment?
I usually choose paper, but both have their drawbacks.

To make paper bags, it takes millions of trees, plus they create more air pollution than plastic bags, but plastic takes forever to disintegrate even though its cheaper to make.

Remember though, the huge environmental costs of harvesting and refining the chemicals that make the bags are far greater than paper bags.

Personally, the wife and I use canvas bags for our groceries.

[naturistoftheyear]

Taiwan banned supermarkets from handing out plastic bags. So you either bring an old plastic bag or buy a cloth bag somewhere.

Smaller shops - like bakeries and market stalls - are still as excessively 'generous' with plastic bags, though, so I don't know how much of an impact on the environment it made.

I certainly prefer paper over plastic, because we throw all our clean old paper - whether newspapers or bottles - into the recycling bin.

[maliakei]

Interesting about that .20 cents charge. It didn't work out because no one wants to pay that much. Maybe if stores charged .05 cents that would be reasonable. At least something is better than nothing. Every cent adds up. The only concern I think about are shoplifters using their canvas bag as a shoulder bag, putting small items in and walking out the store unnoticed.

I notice some stores use more bags for fewer items. Some places only have plastic and there seems to be more plastic bags vs. paper being packed. At least this is what I've noticed. On the mainland is Trader Joe's, a small specialty retail grocer where if you bring in recycled grocery bags you can enter their monthly drawing to get a $25 gift card. Their theme is Hawaii but no stores are here. Too bad, they have some very good items for sale there.

[maliakei]

A breakdown of bag facts

Plastic bags— Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide.

Plastics do NOT biodegrade. Rather, they photodegrade, a process in which sunlight breaks down plastic into smaller and smaller pieces.

It can take up to 1,000 years for a high-density polyethylene plastic bag to break down in the environment.

Plastic bags are on the top 10 list of most common trash items along the American coastline (both on land and in the water).

Paper bags— Paper bags generate 70 percent more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.

2,000 plastic bags weigh 30 pounds, 2,000 paper bags weigh 280 pounds. The latter takes up a lot more landfill space.

It takes 91 percent less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper. It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag.

Sources: reusablebags.com, NRDC and International Coastal Cleanup 2005 Report from the Ocean Conservancy

[Lord Drakkus]

A breakdown of bag facts

Plastic bags— Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide.

Plastics do NOT biodegrade. Rather, they photodegrade, a process in which sunlight breaks down plastic into smaller and smaller pieces.

It can take up to 1,000 years for a high-density polyethylene plastic bag to break down in the environment.

Plastic bags are on the top 10 list of most common trash items along the American coastline (both on land and in the water).

Paper bags— Paper bags generate 70 percent more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.

2,000 plastic bags weigh 30 pounds, 2,000 paper bags weigh 280 pounds. The latter takes up a lot more landfill space.

It takes 91 percent less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper. It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag.

Sources: reusablebags.com, NRDC and International Coastal Cleanup 2005 Report from the Ocean Conservancy

I always get plastic bags because they're stronger than paper. I'm tired of getting paper bags and having them tear when I'm bringing my groceries into the house. Last time we did that, there was a jar of pickles in it, and it nearly ruined around 3 other items. Plastic doesn't tear nearly as easily as paper does, and so I rarely have to worry about dropping the bag.

That said, we also ALWAYS recycle our plastic bags. Most big stores (including Wal-Mart) have a bag drop at the front door, so every month or two when we head out shopping, we just grab the bags of bags and drop them in the box (usually filling the box... lol). It's nice to hear that recycling plastic bags is actually better for the environment than recycling paper ones. My only regret is that plastic is an oil by-product, which by itself isn't all that great.

[FoUTASportscaster]

A breakdown of bag facts

Plastic bags— Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide.

Plastics do NOT biodegrade. Rather, they photodegrade, a process in which sunlight breaks down plastic into smaller and smaller pieces.

It can take up to 1,000 years for a high-density polyethylene plastic bag to break down in the environment.

Plastic bags are on the top 10 list of most common trash items along the American coastline (both on land and in the water).

Paper bags— Paper bags generate 70 percent more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.

2,000 plastic bags weigh 30 pounds, 2,000 paper bags weigh 280 pounds. The latter takes up a lot more landfill space.

It takes 91 percent less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper. It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag.

Sources: reusablebags.com, NRDC and International Coastal Cleanup 2005 Report from the Ocean Conservancy

Excluded is the environmental cost of harvesting the materials to make the bags. Drilling for oil has a greater impact to the environment, especially if the oil comes from far away, than felling a tree, especially if the tree is replanted.

[Boreas]

I always get plastic bags because they're stronger than paper. I'm tired of getting paper bags and having them tear when I'm bringing my groceries into the house. Last time we did that, there was a jar of pickles in it, and it nearly ruined around 3 other items. Plastic doesn't tear nearly as easily as paper does, and so I rarely have to worry about dropping the bag.

That is a reason why I use cloth bags as much as possible. I was tired of poorly made plastic bags. Our grocery store plastic bags seem to have gotten thinner and thinner, and the bottom seam is not reliable. I try to use them for cat litter, but it is often hard to find one without a hole in the bottom. I have had a couple of nasty incidents where I pour the cat litter in and then discover there is a hole in the bag. :(

[MoonShadow]

I use cloth bags also. I made several of them out of scrap material I had from my previous days of sewing. They are stronger than paper or plastic and when they get dirty, they go in the washing machine. Plus, they hold more and you don't end up with several bags and they will slide over your shoulder.

Stores now have their own reusable bags and I am all for this idea. You just have to keep them in your car when you empty them so I use a file folder crate for them; keeps them in one place and out of the way of the rest of the trunk area.

[wynotbnude]

I use cloth bags also. I made several of them out of scrap material I had from my previous days of sewing. They are stronger than paper or plastic and when they get dirty, they go in the washing machine. Plus, they hold more and you don't end up with several bags and they will slide over your shoulder.

Stores now have their own reusable bags and I am all for this idea. You just have to keep them in your car when you empty them so I use a file folder crate for them; keeps them in one place and out of the way of the rest of the trunk area.

Good for you, Moonshadow, and our environment!! This seems like the best option. We recently aquired a few cloth bags, but they haven't been used yet. Can't remember to grab them on the way out the door, just get to the store and say," damn, forgot them again." Maybe have a place for them next to the front door so i can see them on my way out.
We don't have much recycling here "out in the sticks" but we do a lot of reusing the plastic bags for other things.

[Boreas]

Good for you, Moonshadow, and our environment!! This seems like the best option. We recently aquired a few cloth bags, but they haven't been used yet. Can't remember to grab them on the way out the door, just get to the store and say," damn, forgot them again." Maybe have a place for them next to the front door so i can see them on my way out.
We don't have much recycling here "out in the sticks" but we do a lot of reusing the plastic bags for other things.

I bought bags from different stores as a way to learn to remember to bring them in with me. That worked quite well. Most days. I am pretty good with the grocery stores, and am improving with other stores. It is all a work in progress!

[MeBNude]

FoUTASportscaster brings up a good point which applies to all of the choices we make in trying to cut down our carbon footprint and lessen our impact on the environment. There are the nominal costs, but then there are the full costs. The numbers that get bandied about by environmentalists and conservatives alike (I'm a tree hugger all the way, even have a certificate in environmental law) are almost never accurate. They use the numbers and variables they want to prove their preconceived point.

Quick case in point as for nominal vs. full value, I pay in gas for my car about $ .10 per mile. But the business reimbursement rate per the IRS is $ .55 because employers and the IRS knows there are other costs, wear and tear, tires, percentage portion of car upkeep, etc.

So when I look at this in the environmental context, looking at ethanol and total cost, I'm not sure it makes sense - at least for us on the west coast. It's touted as the replacement for petroleum, but when you count the herbicides and pesticides, farms that are now not producing other important food crops, cost of production, and then transport... I'm not sure that makes sense. If you live in the corn belt, O.K., that makes more sense.

I just would like to see that when we are talking about enviromental friendly solutions that we had all of the data so we knew we were comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. O.K. My rant is done.

[Agde]

FoUTASportscaster brings up a good point which applies to all of the choices we make in trying to cut down our carbon footprint and lessen our impact on the environment...

With all the green hydro-electric power in the Northwest, you guys are already way ahead making strategic deals with electric car manufacturers! Mitsubishi is working with the state of Oregon and Portland General Electric (http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10218039-48.html) and plans to sell the 100-mile-range i-MiEV (http://earth2tech.com/2009/06/05/mitsubishi-subaru-gear-up-for-electric-car-rollouts-starting-in-japan/) in the US by next spring. Well, 100-miles will get you from Portland to Salem, but not quite back. (On the other hand, its perfect for Portland to Rooster Rock!) Subaru is already testing their R1e (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/subaru-electric-cars-r1e-g4e-new-york.php) in New York City -- the downside is that with a 55-mile-range, it won't get you from Portland to Salem, but the good news is that it recharges in 15-minutes, as opposed to overnight for the i-MiEV. Oh well, anyway their carbon footprint calculation is good ($.93 per 100 miles)... but it sounds like early-adopters will need to use their cloth grocery bags for provisions while awaiting recharging to complete. :)

[FoUTASportscaster]

Good for you, Moonshadow, and our environment!! This seems like the best option. We recently aquired a few cloth bags, but they haven't been used yet. Can't remember to grab them on the way out the door, just get to the store and say," damn, forgot them again." Maybe have a place for them next to the front door so i can see them on my way out.
We don't have much recycling here "out in the sticks" but we do a lot of reusing the plastic bags for other things.

We are fortunate that we able to walk to the grocery store. We grab our cart and have the bags in there already. I think if we had to use the car, it would be a similar experience.


Quick case in point as for nominal vs. full value, I pay in gas for my car about $ .10 per mile. But the business reimbursement rate per the IRS is $ .55 because employers and the IRS knows there are other costs, wear and tear, tires, percentage portion of car upkeep, etc.

As a transportation planner, I can tell you that is the mechanics behind the reason why 1) our transportation system is so environmentally damaging and 2) why we will never win the battle against congestion. As long as the user doesn't pay the full cost 1) in the case of environmental damage and 2) in the case of using the roadway, then we will always have those negative consequences.

[Kouak]

A breakdown of bag facts

Plastic bags— Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide.

Plastics do NOT biodegrade. Rather, they photodegrade, a process in which sunlight breaks down plastic into smaller and smaller pieces.

It can take up to 1,000 years for a high-density polyethylene plastic bag to break down in the environment.

Plastic bags are on the top 10 list of most common trash items along the American coastline (both on land and in the water).

Paper bags— Paper bags generate 70 percent more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.

2,000 plastic bags weigh 30 pounds, 2,000 paper bags weigh 280 pounds. The latter takes up a lot more landfill space.

It takes 91 percent less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper. It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag.

Sources: reusablebags.com, NRDC and International Coastal Cleanup 2005 Report from the Ocean Conservancy

Consider that about half of the plastic bags now-a-days have holes in the bottom and cannot be reused. Baggers fill the bags with just a couple of items. So instead of 6 paper bags, you may get 18 plastic bags--3 times as much.

I have found that you can reuse paper bags on (mostly) an equal basis as a new one, meaning a single paper bag can be used instead of a single new bag. Since plastic bags are so thin (which probably contributes to all of the holes in them), you really have to use 2 old plastic bags instead of a single new bag to ensure they won't split.

This translates to the first grocery trip using 6 paper bags or 18 plastic bags. Let's say 1 paper bag is torn and is recycled leaving 5 bags for the 2nd trip. On the second trip, you need 1 additional paper bag. Now say 8 plastic bags have holes and are recycled leaving 10 bags for the 2nd trip. Of the 10 bags being reused, they must be doubled up because they are so thin giving you 5 bags. You will need 13 new plastic bags to get your 18 bags needed for your 2nd trip. That is 13 plastic bags vs. 1 paper bag.

Reconsider the statistic of "2,000 plastic bags weigh 30 pounds, 2,000 paper bags weigh 280 pounds." At a 13 to 1 ratio, you will need 26,000 plastic bags weighing 390 pounds to equal 2,000 paper bags weighing 280 pounds. This just shows how a statistic out of context is just a number. The original statistic implies that it is cheaper to transport the same number of plastic than paper bags making plastic a better choice. While true on the surface when you factor in the reusability of plastic vs. paper, plastic has a higher transportation cost--390 vs. 280 pounds.

(The statistics used here are for illustration only. They kind of reflect reality. I will admit that I, slightly :rolleyes:, exaggerated the numbers to prove a point. :eek:)

[Mosquito_Bait]

The county I live in (Isle of Wight, Virginia) has been debating a ban on plastic bags. This is a cotton growing region. The farmers complain that plastic bags get caught in their cotton-picking machines and contaminate the cotton bales. One of the local supermarkets has now voluntarily stopped using plastic bags.

[Archaewok1]

I like paper better, but that's because they tend to be sturdier. Though since I am a college student, and only have to get a small amount of groceries every now and then, I often don't use a bag at all.

[moondoggie]

It is completely amazing to me. If one waits long enough it comes around. Like: By the 1980's we were all supposedly frozen. Same people said in the 1960's were were all burned up and refrozen in the 1990's and 2000's. Here in the east we were behind the minds of the world when we were not using plastic bags in the 1980's we were using paper. NOW we are not ecologically correct because we are using plastic and should be using paper. Now we should be killing trees at twice the speed of light to copy all correspondence because we are dealing with an only electronic record keeping. But if you have a problem you must have a copy of it. If you watch it is the same people as the 60's or 80's or now later. Follw the money trail. We have to use green technology. Wind mills etc. But ours on the mountains of PA kill biurds so these are not good so we shut them down. We can not feed the people of the world but we shut down the rivers to create a dust bowl of the 20's and 30's in California because of the smelt people can die but that is OK. The Tennesee Valley Authority shut down in the 60's and 70's because of the snail darter fish. Just like West Va. senator saying PA coal is no good but WVA coal is OK geese ROCKAFELLA. Just be nude and consider yourself lucky to be able to.

[DSailing]

Neither. We carry our own canvas bags. We keep them in the car or on the boat at anchor. We don't just use them for groceries though; we use them for buying anything that we can't carry out in our hands. If we can carry it out, then I refuse a bag.

[mmacdonaldca]

I am a reuseable bag guy. Either cotton or those fancy ones made from recycled pop bottles. I switched quite awhile ago, before the local stores started to do away with plastic bags. In Nova Scotia most stores dumped paper years ago. They all went plastic. Now most of those same stores are shying away from plastic as well. One major grocery chain has stopped providing bags all together. You must bring your own. Some still provide and charge and some haven't changed at all.

One comment about everyone who brings your plastic bags back to the drop off recycle bins at the store, ask the manager where the bags go? Some stores simply dump them in the garbage, some have haulers that take them away who then dump them in the garbage. You have to check, because recyclers are picky about the quality of the material they are getting. If the bags are food-spoiled (meat juice, onion skins, etc) they refuse the bags. So instead of going through them all, they just dump them. But as far as most of the public is concerned, it looks like they are doing a good thing...just check to make sure :)

[Smiley]

We have a small bin for plastic bags to reuse several times but both paper and plastic wind up in the wood stove eventually. As we heat only with wood and live in a rural area it only makes sense. .at least to me. Heat is heat. Matter of fact, labels from tin cans meet the same fate, but tin cans and heavier plastic such as bottles go to the recycle center. Most plastic soda bottles have a 5 cent deposit in this State so back to the store they go. Vegetable waste either goes in the stove (in winter) or into the mulch pile (in summer), meat and fish scraps go to the woodpile kitties so we have very little that winds up in landfills.

[DSailing]

This is an interesting topic. Here are some of the other things that we do besides using canvas bags to help reduce our foot prints:

Use containers instead of sandwich bags
Use wax paper if needed instead of plastic wrap
Reuse bottles when possible
Use handkerchiefs instead of tissue
Try to buy more local foods
Try to find wild free foods
Ride our bikes more often instead of driving
We also use solar and wind generation
Try and buy organic clothes and food
Don't kill more fish than we can eat
Use steel bottles and refill them with filtered tap water
Living on a boat, we take quick showers which reduces water consumption

Almost forgot, we go naked often which reduces clothes washing and usage.