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Paper vs Plastic

Paper vs Plastic. Plastic vs Paper. Paper or Plastic? Every time I’m in a grocery store and didn’t bring along a bag myself I am confronted, and confused, with this seemingly life-changing, salmon-killing question. If I choose paper I’ll be blamed for ruining the habitat of every spotted owl and bald eagle perch. If I choose plastic…well, than I’m just contributing to the already massive bottom line of every oil company out there. So what shall it be?

The obvious answer is to just bring your own bag and use none of the above. But if you have to choose, well here’s a bit of info that you may find helpful:

• It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag (http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=7)
• In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone (http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=7)
• Paper sacks generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags, meaning that plastic takes up less much space in landfills
• according to the Wall Street Journal, it takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to
  recycle a pound of paper. Granted we our society doesn’t recycle much in the first place so this may be a moot point

I found this little tidbit very interesting as I would have assumed that if paper bags were to end up in a landfill, they would at least degrade quicker.  Apparently that isn’t necessarily the case, at least according to this site:

Current research demonstrates that paper in today’s landfills does not
degrade or break down at a substantially faster rate than plastic does.
In fact, nothing completely degrades in modern landfills because of the
lack of water, light, oxygen and other important elements that are
necessary for the degradation process to be completed. A paper bags
takes up more space than a plastic bag in a landfill, but because paper
is recycled at a higher rate, saving space in landfills is less of an
issue.

To be honest, I would probably use plastic (IF I HAD TO) based on the little research I’ve completed in the last five minutes. That doesn’t mean it’s good:

• According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100
  billion plastic shopping bags annually. An estimated 12 million barrels
  of oil is required to make that many plastic bags (http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=4
• Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistake them for food (http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=4)

I could go on and on with some rather depressing numbers I uncovered at www.reusablebags.com but I’ll save the details. Instead just take the time to think when you head out to the store and grab a bag to bring with you. Although, we could argue that it’s the stores that should be advocating the use of alternative bags, such as they do in:

• In a dramatic move to stem a tide of 60,000 metric tons of plastic bag
  and plastic utensil waste per year, Taiwan banned both last year
• In 2001, Ireland used 1.2 billion disposable plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%.

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Posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007 at 8:30 pm. Filed under: advocacy RSS 2.0 feed.

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