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The growing concern about wasting plastic and paper bags is making many people wonder what to choose. Here are the facts.
According to the EPA, the United States uses around 100 billion plastic bags annually, and less than 2% is recycled. Virgin resin for making bags costs less than recycled resin, so recycling bags is not very profitable Most municipalities do not accept bags in their recycling programs because they can seal machines. The average family uses around 1,000 plastic bags each year. Most of them are only used once, but about 7% are reused for lining waste cans, collecting dog droppings, etc.
Plastic bags do not break down. The sun will photodegrade the bags, which means that over time the sun breaks down the plastic into smaller and smaller pieces. This is actually not good as small particles can get into the food chain, especially when bags litter the sea and are accidentally mistaken for food by wildlife. In the water, the bags look like jellyfish and are eaten, causing choking and sometimes entanglement. Millions of animals are killed by plastic bags each year. When an animal eats plastic, it cannot digest it, so the toxins in the plastic remain which humans can then ingest while eating the animal.
1000 miles off the coast of San Francisco there is a place called the Garbage Patch. It is about twice the size of Texas and can go up to 300 feet. It is almost entirely made of plastic and is caught in a so-called vortex. In fact, the water samples taken showed six parts of the plastic to one part of the plankton of marine food.
Garbage from plastic bags has been found on remote islands and has even flowed to Antarctica. The environmental risks associated with plastic bags have made them banned or taxed in more than twenty countries. The bags clogging sewer lines were blamed for the massive floods of Bangladesh in 1988 and 1998, leading to the first national ban in 2002.
Oil is needed to make plastic bags. China banned free plastic bags last summer and expects to save 34 million barrels of oil annually. Ireland has a program called PlasTax that is credited with saving 400,000 barrels of oil.
Retailers switched to plastic bags in the late 1970s because they are much cheaper than paper bags and take up less storage space. Most sellers cost a few cents for a plastic bag and up to fifteen cents for a paper bag.
Paper bags are not necessarily better for the environment. 14 million trees are needed to produce the 10 billion paper bags used in the US. Moreover, it takes much more energy to produce a paper bag than a plastic bag. However, more and more municipalities are adopting paper bags for recycling, and 20% of paper bags are recycled. The average family uses 400 paper bags a year. Although paper bags decompose, in landfills they often cannot because they lack the air and moisture needed to decompose.
One of the options making progress in the US is a reusable bag. Reusable bags only need to be used eleven times to have a positive impact on the environment. A high-quality bag can save several thousand bags in the landfill. If you have trouble remembering your bag, look for one that folds into a self-contained pocket so you can put it in your purse or pocket.
More and more people discover when they ask about paper or plastic? In fact, the answer is no. Both cause significant damage to the environment and use a lot of energy to produce. Consider the answer: Not one. I brought my own bag.