Grocery shopping bags!!

[Wittlich]

Originally posted by EPW
SF hates trees

No, we harvest them. As long as you replant them, then no lasting harm is done.

[EPW]

I'm busy massacring the army you had on my borders

On topic, did they consider the amount of fuel it takes to cut down trees and make paper vs. the cost of making plastic? I think plastic is much cheaper in terms of energy.

[Wittlich]

Ah, yes - the alliance that you had me join only to turn around and join the enemy in mid-stride....yes, I know it well. Thanks for that, by the way.

Back to the topic at hand:

Well, simply put: Plastic takes petroleum (a lot of it). With paper, petroleum is not a necessity (granted, it makes it easier for certain processes, but it is not necessary to the industry itself).

And the bottom line is:

PAPER = RECYCLABLE

PLASTIC = NOT RECYCLABLE - or at least HARD to recycle.

So, EPW; I have this in response: Do you know how much petroleum it takes to make just one plastic bag?
(Hint: far, far more than to make one paper bag).

[EPW]

Paper or plastic — what’s the greener choice?
When it comes to choosing your shopping bag, the decision isn’t an easy one



Plastic bags
— Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide.
— Plastics do NOT biodegrade. Rather, they photodegrade, a process in which sunlight breaks down plastic into smaller and smaller pieces.
— It can take up to 1,000 years for a high-density polyethylene plastic bag to break down in the environment.
— Plastic bags are on the top 10 list of most common trash items along the American coastline (both on land and in the water).

Paper bags
— Paper bags generate 70 percent more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.
— 2,000 plastic bags weigh 30 pounds, 2,000 paper bags weigh 280 pounds. The latter takes up a lot more landfill space.
— It takes 91 percent less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper. It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag.

Sources: reusablebags.com, NRDC and International Coastal Cleanup 2005 Report from the Ocean Conservancy
By Anne Thompson
Chief environmental correspondent
NBC News
updated 4:37 p.m. PT, Mon., May. 7, 2007


Anne Thompson
Chief environmental correspondent
• Profile
YONKERS, New York - Would you like paper or plastic? It's the question food shoppers are asked every day — a simple choice that even environmentally conscious shoppers at Whole Foods find confusing.

"I generally pick paper because it's more protective of the environment," one shopper tells us.

But all too often, convenience rules.
Story continues below ↓advertisement

"You caught me on a plastic day," another shopper says. "Now I feel guilty."
But should she?

Consumers find themselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes to paper or plastic. To find out what is best to do in the grocery store, we turned to Allen Hershkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"It depends on where you live," he says.

Plastic bags threaten wildlife along the coasts, so if that's where you call home, Hershkowitz says the choice should be paper. In the heartland, he says it's plastic.

"I just assumed paper was the better choice — more environmentally friendly choice," our guilty shopper says.

But people don't realize how big a footprint the paper industry has.

Here's how paper and plastic stack up side by side:

To make all the bags we use each year, it takes 14 million trees for paper and 12 million barrels of oil for plastic. The production of paper bags creates 70 percent more air pollution than plastic, but plastic bags create four times the solid waste — enough to fill the Empire State Building two and a half times. And they can last up to a thousand years.

Plastic, because it's cheaper to produce, is the overwhelming choice of grocery stores across the nation — the average family of four uses almost 1,500 of these a year. San Francisco is limiting consumers' freedom of choice, allowing only biodegradable plastic bags, which break down over months rather than hundreds of years.

For both types of bags, the environmentalist mantra is the same — reuse and recycle. But the best choice, they say, is cloth or canvas, and BYOB — bring your own bags.
© 2008 MSNBC Interactive

[Arrian]

I've got 5 of the reuseable mesh bags (they're not canvas... I'm not quite sure what they are. Probably nylon of some kind).

Sometimes I leave them home. That really pisses me off. Then I typically use paper... which I then use in my fireplace.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Blake
Another thing I do when shopping. You know how with fresh fruit and veges (hopefully everyone knows what they are), you normally grab a little plastic bag and put the fruit/vegse in the bag?

I don't bother with the little plastic bags unless I'm buying more than about 3 pieces at once (usually I go for a wide variety*)...

This quite dramatically cuts down the number of plastic bags I end up with.

I do this with things like bell peppers (typically I buy 1-2 of those per week), bananas (2-3) and cucumbers (1).

I've been pondering reusing those little plastic bags. I usually put apples in them. It's a matter of remembering to put the fruit/veggie bags inside the mesh bags (and getting the mesh bags in the car). Baby steps...

-Arrian

[Spec]

I always ask for paper. Recyclable FTW!

Spec.

[KrazyHorse]

Why the **** do people care so much about this issue?

I generally drive to the grocery store, 1.5 miles from my house. Assuming I'm getting 15 mpg (in the city), the trip will cost 0.2 gallons of gas (US gallon). At 3.78 liters per US gallon and density ~0.78 this is 0.6 kg of petroleum products.

When I go I might use 10-12 plastic bags(on average). By their figures, this masses ~0.06 kg

So what's the big frigging deal? I'm burning 10X more gas to get there than I am in plastic bags. I agree that plastic bags tend to end up as litter, so I suggest that everybody burn their plastic bags when they get home.

[Perfection]

Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill.

CEO Nwabudike Morgan
"The Ethics of Greed"

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I suggest that everybody burn their plastic bags when they get home.

Apart from the fact that some of us have many uses for plastic bags, as I indicated earlier, burning any excess is a reasonable idea, as was the concept of burning rubbish generally once upon a time. Now, however, the enviro-jackboot brigade have stopped burning in some places, and are now complaining about the problems of landfill.

They'll only be happy when they have exterminated every last consuming-and-polluting human (except the hippy elite).

[Spec]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Why the **** do people care so much about this issue?

I generally drive to the grocery store, 1.5 miles from my house. Assuming I'm getting 15 mpg (in the city), the trip will cost 0.2 gallons of gas (US gallon). At 3.78 liters per US gallon and density ~0.78 this is 0.6 kg of petroleum products.

When I go I might use 10-12 plastic bags(on average). By their figures, this masses ~0.06 kg

So what's the big frigging deal? I'm burning 10X more gas to get there than I am in plastic bags. I agree that plastic bags tend to end up as litter, so I suggest that everybody burn their plastic bags when they get home.

If you used paper bags you'd end up using 0.6kg all the time instead of 0.66kg.

Do that 10 times and you saved a trip to the grocery store.

Spec.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


Apart from the fact that some of us have many uses for plastic bags, as I indicated earlier, burning any excess is a reasonable idea,

I agree. (with both sentiments). I keep a supply of plastic grocery bags under my sink for use in small garbages (bathroom, office), to carry my lunch in and for sundry other reasons.

The only real problem I can see with plastic bags is that when they "escape" the trash system (either via littering or by accident) they tend to create an eyesore. Once they're burned they don't present this difficulty. They're hugely mass efficient, don't cost much to make and also don't pollute too badly when burned, given their utility.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Spec


If you used paper bags you'd end up using 0.6kg all the time instead of 0.66kg.

Do that 10 times and you saved a trip to the grocery store.

Spec.

Why? Are paper bags free all of a sudden?

Do you realize the sort of nasty **** they use to make paper (even unbleached paper)?

[KrazyHorse]

Here's a novel idea: figure out how much plastic bags cost to make and dispose of. Charge me that much extra if I use plastic bags.

My feeling is that it's somewhere between 1 and 5 cents a plastic bag.

Guess what? That's not even close to enough to prevent me from using plastic bags. So I would pay the plastic bag tax and not complain.

While we're at it could we please raise gas and road usage taxes to the point where people pay the full cost of their individual use?

Internalizing external costs

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
The only real problem I can see with plastic bags is that when they "escape" the trash system (either via littering or by accident) they tend to create an eyesore. Once they're burned they don't present this difficulty. They're hugely mass efficient, don't cost much to make and also don't pollute too badly when burned, given their utility.

More than teh eyesore is teh effect on animals that eat them and drains, etc., that they clog. But burning puts all sorts of furans and dioxins into teh air; better to compact them and keep them sequestered somewhere.