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For at least a few decades, Americans have been drilled in the superiority of tote bags. Reusable bags are good, we’re told, because they’re friendly for the environment. Disposable bags, on the other hand, are dangerous. Municipalities across the country have moved to restrict the consumption of plastic shopping bags to avoid waste. Many businesses have stopped offering plastic sacks, or provide them for a modest but punitive price. Bag-recycling programs have been introduced nationwide.
But canvas bags might actually be worse for the environment than the plastic ones they are meant to replace. In 2008, the UK Environment Agency (UKEA) published a study of resource expenditures for various bags: paper, plastic, canvas, and recycled-polypropylene tote bags. Surprisingly, the authors found that in typical patterns of use and disposal, consumers seeking to minimize pollution and carbon emissions should use plastic grocery bags and then reuse those bags at least once—as trash-can liners or for other secondary tasks. Conventional plastic bags made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE, the plastic sacks found at grocery stores) had the smallest per-use environmental impact of all those tested. Cotton tote bags, by contrast, exhibited the highest and most severe global-warming potential by far since they require more resources to produce and distribute.
originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: DanDanDat
I agree, but doesn't take into account the danger of plastic to marine life.
originally posted by: schuyler
originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: DanDanDat
I agree, but doesn't take into account the danger of plastic to marine life.
It doesn't take into account China, either, which is where the vast majority of "marine plastic" comes from, right down the Yangtse River. When is the last time you or anybody you know threw plastic in the ocean? Never, right? You wanna clean this up you'll have to go to the source. Banning plastic bags in grocery stores is not going to cut it.
originally posted by: Metallicus
The plastic bags they use at Kroger are actually biodegradeable. Not that I believe in the global warming scam, but the reality long as I don’t litter I am happy.
originally posted by: Halfswede
My wife and I have had 4 cotton bags that my mom made 10 years ago. They are super sturdy and can carry as much as you have the strength to carry. While we occasionally forget, they have been used probably a few thousand times and have no end in sight.
According to the report, organic cotton bags have to be reused many more times than conventional cotton bags (20,000 versus 7,000 times), based on the assumption that organic cotton has a 30% lower yield rate on average than conventional cotton, and therefore was assumed to require 30% more resources, like water, to grow the same amount.