Green Tech Girl

Can Green Technology Save Our Planet?


Paper or Plastic? Plastic Bags Become Public Enemy #1

Bio BagI 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? (more…)