Paper or Plastic? Plastic Bags Become Public Enemy #1
I am old enough (cough) to remember when it was actually environmentally cooler to tell the grocery store checkout person that you wanted a plastic bag. Use a plastic bag, save a tree!
I guess that may sound naive now, but that’s what people were thinking in the 1980s.
Now things have turned 180 degrees and plastic bags are the scourge of Satan. China has just banned them, and many American cities are looking to do so as well.
The reason? People are lazy asses, I guess, and they just don’t know how to reuse or recycle these bags properly. So they end up flying around and causing all sorts of havoc. (I have to ask…just how do plastic bags escape from people anyway? The way they fly around, it’s as if some kid had a balloon on a string they let go of. My bags never fly anywhere – they are carrying stuff! Duh!)
Yet, when you look at it from a manufacturing and transportation standpoint, which is truly better: Paper or plastic?
Consider the following from “Paper vs. Plastic: the big debate“:
2000 plastic bags weigh 30 pounds, 2000 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. Energy to produce the bags (in British thermal units): plastic bags: 594 BTU; paper bags: 2511 BTU.
Furthermore, paper apparently doesn’t degrade any better in landfills than plastic does. Things are packed in there so tightly, the landfill ends up becoming something like a piece of petrified garbage.
So is paper really better? Not really.
They both have their pros and cons. Now, plastic bags use up petrochemicals that we need for fuel, but I’m kind of thinking that maybe the sooner we use up our oil, the sooner we’ll be forced to use alternatives. There are also companies creating more environmental plastic bags, made out of biodegradable plastics.
Now, some suggest that the best thing is neither paper or plastic: get reusable grocery bags! I think that’s a terrific option, provided they last long enough and are environmentally made. Cheap reusable bags that end up in landfills could potentially take up more landfill space than disposable bags – consider that! They may also have their own costs in terms of manufacturing and transportation.
My solution is to reuse every grocery bag I get as garbage bags. (You’ll find a full accounting of this option here.) In my mind, why should I buy big, thick garbage bags (that are certainly impacting the environment just as much if not more than a small plastic bag) when I can get my garbage bags for free?
I use paper grocery bags for dry waste and plastic grocery bags for kitchen and bathroom waste. I also use the bags for various toting needs, including packing stuff up to take to Goodwill, taking things to the recycling center, and stashing my soggy wet surf booties in my gym bag without getting everything else wet.
So I guess I’m not quite seeing the point of banning plastic bags, if it just means that people will end up buying more garbage bags.
To me, the issue isn’t so much the plastic bag itself but people being lazy. If everyone recycled their plastic bags, either by reusing them as garbage bags or taking them back to the store to put in the recycling bin, the bags should not be flying around causing other problems. And now that there are environmental versions, there are other options.
This is not to say that reusable bags aren’t also a good option. But there are many ways to tackle this problem, and one should include greater public awareness of the consequences of littering. (Don’t get me started on smokers and cigarette butts.)
Furthermore, we need to come up with ways to improve our recycling technology. Our landfills are goldmines of raw material. I imagine that some day, if we survive that long, we will find a way to harness all the raw materials stuck in landfills. Everything should be recyclable. I realize that’s optimistic, but why not at least try? Then the question won’t be paper vs. plastic, but educating people to stop their careless littering.
Tags: biodegradable plastic, landfills
