Those little plastic bags we carry our purchases home in are an ecological disaster. In the United States 88 billion are used each year, their cousins are blowing in the breeze from Sao Paulo to New Delhi, caught in shrubbery, filling gutters and killing animals that eat or get caught in them. The worst part is they take 500 to 1,000 years to decompose. The good part is they are 1005 recyclable. Problem is about 1% get recycled.
Not that paper bags are better. Estimates are it takes more energy and pollutes more water to make paper bags than plastic ones.
A paper cup consumes 33 grams of wood while a polystyrene one use about 4 grams of fuel oil or natural gas both take a slew of chemicals. Making a paper cup consumes thirty-six times as much electricity and 580 times of the volume of waste water, which contains some level of contaminants like chlorine; on the other hand, making the plastic cup produces pentane, a gas that increases ozone and greenhouse gas. But then there are methane releases of paper cups left to biodegrade in a landfill.
The smart answer to "Paper or Plastic?" is Neither---I brought my own bag. But. . .what are the impacts of that brought-my-own-bag? Were they manufactured in factories certified to offer fair wages with no child labor, were carbon offsets purchased to cover the impacts of manufacture and transport, and were they sold (to the end user) at cost? Was fair trade cotton used and was it bought directly from small growers?
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