Paper Vs. Plastic. What’s the right choice?
We were recently having this conversation on plastic and paper bags, trying to identify what’s a more sustainable option.
There’s no definitive answer to a question “What’s better?”, as there are too many factors with different “weight”. Paper, on one hand, can be returned to the cycle via recycling, then it will be considered as “all good”. At the same time this paper can be made out of Amazonian forests, then ecological “weight” of such paper will be as one of gold :)
Plastic bags might fail to some criteria, but be highly advantaged to some other.
Let’s dissect an example.
Attempting to reduce waste amounts, some countries have banned plastic bags in grocery stores and supermarkets. Nevertheless, studies show that if consumers shift to paper bags, more fuel will be needed for transportation of those. Why so? That’s because paper bag occupies more space than plastic one, and therefore more trucks are needed to transport the same amount of stuff. In this case one of the compromises of such shift from plastic to paper would be the decrease of plastic/polyethylene waste, but usage of fuels and, as consequence, emissions would grow.
It turns out that while we think we’re making a “green” choice, in reality we just make a so-called environmental impact shift from one phase to another within the same system. It’s not all that “sustainable” as it seems.
Sure, taking any item on our hands we won’t calculate all its life cycle, neither we will think about what kind of fuel was used, etc. But! There is one criterion, which helps to make right consumer’s choice.
In March/April of 2015 “Monoprix”, the network of French supermarkets, has decided to take plastic bags away from their shops and instead replace them with paper ones. Just imagine yourself putting veggies and fruits into such paper bags, carelessly throwing a scarf over your shoulder and voila..you’re kind of a star in a movie on a different, happier life.. Everybody was so happy, it seemed so, hmmm, “ecological”.
It turned to be not so rosy. I noticed that I could reuse the same plastic bag as many time as I wanted. Every time I was going shopping I just grabbed some from home, sticked new price tags on top of the old ones — and that was it. I had like 5–6 plastic bags constantly in circulation and no irritating mountain of trash.
Paper bags, however, take up more space, they are not so simply folded up, they crumble, tear apart and go to paper recycling almost straight away, after single use.
The criterion I myself use and suggest others to do so is — reuse. Plastic, polyethylene, paper, textile — whatever it is, it’s not that bad if you are able to use it multiple times. This allows to stay longer in the Reduce & Reuse stages, and send the item into Recycle stage much later.
P.S. My mom came up with a cunning way to fold large plastic bags in shape of triangles (picture below), and always carries a couple with her. Plastic, but environmentally-sound, smartly-reused.
