Today in the LA Times there was an article regarding a new effort to ban plastic bags coming out of Malibu. LINK. According to the article
“An ordinance unanimously adopted by Malibu’s City Council this week will soon make plastic bags a thing of the past among its 13,000 residents and four supermarkets.
The measure will apply to all retailers, including grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies and city facilities, which will have about six months to comply, or face a fine of up to $1,000. Smaller vendors will have up to a year.”
What concerns me about this ban plastic bags movement, is the bizarre reasoning behind the push. As long as plastic bags are not being littered, they are as a whole, substantially better for the environment than paper bags! Reusablebags.com did a great overview on the differences, here are some of the findings they highlighted:
ENERGY TO PRODUCE BAG ORIGINALLY (BTUs)
Safeway Plastic Bags: 594 BTUs
Safeway Paper Bags: 2511 BTUs
ENERGY TO RECYCLE PACKAGE ONCE (BTUs)
Safeway Plastic Bags: 17 BTUs
Safeway Paper Bags: 1444 BTUs
Of course, most paper comes from tree pulp, so the impact of paper bag production on forests is enormous. In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone.
POLLUTANTS PAPER V.S. PLASTIC
Paper sacks generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.
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.
Another issue is the energy required to transport/haul these bags around. Paper bags are significantly heavier and have a much greater volume than plastic, which means they require significantly more energy to transport and take up more space in landfills.
Here is a great info-graphic from the Washington post to sum it all up: LINK
Long story short, if you didn’t bring your canvas bag, and so long as your not littering your bags, plastic is the clear environmental winner! Trust me on this!
Dude, I know you mentioned this on your post, yet the clear answer is for people just to bring their own bags to a grocery store. I have this outstanding Trader Joe’s bag I bring into Ralphs, Wal-mart, Fresh n’ Easy…
Besides, I don’t have to worry about the bag breaking apart when walking back home.
I’m going to check the source of the data you posted to see if it’s industry-generated. Most is.