More and more cities, states and countries have prohibited single -use plastic bagsand with it the paper has become a popular alternative in the supermarket box. At first glance, it looks like an obvious victory for the environment. After all, plastic bags are manufactured with fossil fuels and are an important source of pollution.
However, paper bags are not necessarily a better option. They have their own list of environmental warnings, as are reusable bags.
Here are some of the things that you should take into account to make an informed decision on how to pocket your purchases.
Plastic and paper
It is difficult to compare the different types of shopping bags. This is because the environmental footprint of a bag depends on a plethora of factors: how it was manufactured, what materials were used, how much distance it was transported and much more. But the few exhaustive studies that have been made on the subject offer some useful conclusions.
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Paper bags usually require more energy for their production than plastic. A 2011 study of the British Environment Agencyfor example, he concluded that you would have to reuse a paper bag three times so that its impact on global warming is equated to that of a plastic bag used only once.
A 2018 study of the Environmental Protection Agency of Denmark It came to the similar conclusion that the plastic bags made of low density polyethylene, a versatile and widely used plastic form, have the slightest environmental footprint of eight types of shopping bags, including paper.
What happens to discarded bags? According to the British study, what happens with a bag at the end of its useful life contributes very little to its impact on global warming. But from a broader environmental perspective, it is still worth reflecting on that question.
Only About 10 percent of plastic bags are recycled in the United Statesaccording to the Environmental Protection Agency. The recycling rate of the category that includes paper bags is significantly higher43 percent.
But this continues to mean that most paper and plastic bags end up in a landfill or, to a lesser extent, in an incinerator. In landfills, paper bags when decomposing produce methane and carbon dioxide, both powerful greenhouse gases. A plastic bag in a landfill does not produce either, but when the plastic escapes the environment, it can be degraded into microplastics that sometimes last centuries.
Samantha Macbide, an expert in urban waste from Baruch College of the City University of New York, stressed another consideration that consumers should take into account: the use of plastic bags perpetuates the fossil fuel industry. “That system has to retract if we want to have a future,” he said.
What you have to know about fabric bags
Reusable fabric bags have gained popularity as a way to reduce the demand for single -use bags. But those good intentions have been counterproductive in a way, since the bags with printed brands have become an omnipresent booty in conferences, company acts and with certain retailers.
Yes a home accumulates more bags than you can usethe purpose of reducing consumption is frustrated. It is also a greater environmental footprint, since the most resistant bags require more resources and materials for its production compared to those of a single use.
The material matters especially. The British study discovered that a cotton bag, for example, would have to be reused 131 times to reach the carbon footprint equivalent to that of a single plastic bag of a single use. The Danish study estimated that they are 149 times. This is due to land, water and fertilizers necessary to grow cotton, to the energy needed to process it and turn it into a thread, and the fact that most cotton bags are sent from China or India.
Macbide recommends looking for reusable bags made in your own country with more sustainable fibers, such as hemp or bamboo. Or, better yet, with used fabric pieces.
The essential
Whatever the material of your bag, experts agree that reusing it as many times as possible is key to reducing its environmental footprint.
This is where paper bags fail, said Steven Cohen, an expert in environmental policy at Columbia University, because they are the least durable option. Who lives in the city and has to load with the purchase from the store, for example, has to ask: “Will this get home?” Cohen said.
If you are diligent in terms of reuse, resistant fabric bags are probably the best option, especially those made of recycled material. Of course, do not accumulate dozens of them.
Michael OverCash, chemical engineer and executive director of Environmental Genome Initiative, a non -profit group that evaluates the environmental footprint of the products, He cited a 2020 study in which he and his colleagues compared the potential for global heating of 20 products and discovered that the reusable ones were systematically better than those of a single use. The same conclusion should be applied to the bags, he said.
“If you reuse a cotton bag one hundred times, it may get dirty and want to wash it, but that means that they have not had to make 100 paper or plastic bags,” said OverCash. “Mathematics are simple”