If you’re an eco-conscious person like me, you probably ask for paper bags instead of plastic. Save the turtles! 

Paper has to be better than plastic, right? I mean, making something out of trees MUST be better than making something comparable out of plastic. But the truth might surprise you. 

Plastic Bags

Plastic bag production takes a lot of fuel to create. We’re talking about 12 million barrels of oil that are used to produce 30 billion plastic bags for the United States alone. The surprising thing is that plastic bags actually generate less water pollution, air pollution, and less solid waste and they take up less space in landfills than paper bags. It’s a much simpler process to make something out of plastic than wood, which perhaps explains why it is so much cheaper. 

While plastic bags generally create less pollution, they wreak more havoc in the natural ecosystems they appear in as they have the tendency to be mistaken for jellyfish and other sea-creatures and can significantly harm turtles and other animals that eat them.

Many people hang on to their plastic bags, feeling guilty about throwing them away after one single use. They hang onto the bag and decide to reuse them for some other purpose. The problem with reusing plastic bags as a form of “recycling” (whether to clean the litter box or pick up after the dog) is that they will still end up in a landfill, even though they were reused. It is better to use bio-degradable bags for these uses if you absolutely MUST use a plastic bag.

The process of forming a plastic bag is a relatively simple one. All you need is a polyethylene pellet. Manufactures heat the pellet to about 240 degrees and pull out a long thin tube of the cooling plastic. Then they drop a hot bar across the plastic to re-melt in a line which forms the bottom of one bag and the top of another. The bags are then separated, holes punched in the top for handles, packaged, and shipped to retail stores across the globe. 

Paper Bags

Paper bag production uses about four times the amount of energy as plastic bag production (plastic uses 594 British Thermal Units (BTU) whereas paper uses 2511 BTU). The World produces about 100 billion plastic bags, and 10 billion paper bags. While the actual production of plastic uses 4 times less energy, we produce 10 times more plastic than paper bags, making them actually half as energy-efficient as paper. This is assuming you calculate two plastic bags for each paper bag, since store cashiers rarely need to double-bag paper but often need to double-bag plastic and can generally fit less merchandise in plastic bags. 

While paper bags are made from a renewable resource rather than petroleum, we still cut down millions of trees to produce enough paper bags to supply American grocery stores alone. In 1999, America produced 10 billion paper bags and had to cut down 14 million trees to do so.

The process in which it takes to make paper bags is not as simple as plastic. After the logs are cut from the forest, they sit in a mill for around three years waiting to dry out completely. Next, the bark is stripped and the wood is chopped into 1 inch pieces and “cooked” at immense heat and pressure. Once they are heated, they are broken down with limestone and sulfurous acid until the wood has been turned into a pulp. Next, they wash the pulp with massive amounts of fresh water and bleach, and finally, the pulp is ready to be formed into paper. Cutting, printing, packaging, and shipping the paper takes even more time, energy, and money. 

“But only paper bags are recyclable, so they’re the better choice.”

This actually isn’t true. Both paper and plastic bags are recyclable. Yep, you read that right, both. Contrary to popular belief, plastic bags are recyclable, but they must be taken back to a store or receptical that accepts their particular type of plastic which can be difficult for some folks to find.

In order the recycle the plastic it sorted and separated by the type of plastic it was made from in order to t be melted down and re-used properly, which can get expensive. It can cost $4,000 to process and recycle 1 ton of plastic bags. 1 ton of plastic bags can be bought on the commodities market for $32. Obviously it is much cheaper to make new plastic bags than to recycle them. Most consumers don’t even recycle their plastic bags; only 1-3% of those 100 billion bags get recycled. Yikes.

Paper bags need to be returned to a pulp in order to recycle them. They use the same process of using bleach and other harmful substances to liquefy it again which uses large quantities of chemicals. Paper bags have a somewhat higher recycling rate than plastic. 10-15% of paper bags get recycled, however, most recycling plants do not make more paper bags from the recycled ones as the re-broken down wood pulp isn’t as strong as the original. More often they are turned into cardboard. 

Only one type of bag is biodegradable, even if 4 out of 10 Americans think they both are. That’s right; almost half of us think that plastic will break down underground in landfills or in the oceans. Let me make this very clear: petroleum-based plastics are NOT biodegradable; they will never decompose. A paper bag, however, is biodegradable but they cannot completely break down in our modern-day landfills because they are often covered by so much garbage and plastic that they cannot reach sunlight or soil which is required to aid in the decomposition process. 

The problem is evident, and the solution is easy. Plan ahead, and opt to use a few cool canvas bags time you’re asked “paper or plastic?”.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world

Mahatma Gandhi

-Sarah