Paper or plastic?

In observance of Earth Day I wanted to write about something really easy you can do to "Go Green" when you are grocery shopping. A really simple thing you can do is to use reusable shopping bags when you go shopping. I keep a few cloth bags in my car so when I go shopping I have the bags with me already. Now this is not to say that I don't use plastic bags when I bag my groceries at the store but I try to fill them as full as I can so I only use as many as I need. Also, I never throw my plastic bags away when I get home. I save them and reuse them the next time I need a bag for something. So next time you're at the store and you're trying to decide 'paper or plastic' here are a few of the environmental pros and cons of both.

Paper Bags:

3 pros

1. Paper bags hold more--which means you get more groceries into each bag and use fewer of them.

2. Paper is biodegradable--if you compost paper it will break down and go from paper to a rich soil nutrient over a period of a couple months. (www.greenhouseneutralfoundation.org).

3. Paper bags are sturdier--Ever leave the grocery store with a plastic bag full of groceries only to have the handle break or the plastic tear on your way to the car? Or throw your plastic bags full of groceries into the back seat of your car and by the time you get home half of the groceries have spilled out? This doesn't seem to happen as often with paper bags because they are studier and stand upright.

3 cons

1. Environmental impact--It takes a lot of trees to make paper bags so paper bags contribute to mass deforestation which results in destroying the habitat of all the plants and animals that live in the forest. (www.greenhouseneutralfoundation.org) It can take over a century for nature to recover from even a small logging operation. (www.angelfire.com).

2. Recycling paper bags requires a process that

3. It requires a great deal of energy, chemicals and other resources to make paper and paper bags. The pulp is made from logs that have been dried and striped of bark and then the pulp is washed and bleached. This process requires thousands of gallons of clean water. (www.angelfire.com).


Plastic Bags:
3 pros
1. The process for recycling plastic is easier and requires less energy then the process for recycling paper. To recycle almost any kind of plastic it merely needs to be remelted and reformed. The remelting process will sterilize the plastic and it can reformed and reused many times over before it becomes brittle. (www.angelfire.com)

2.

3 cons

1. Plastic bags are typically made from oil, a nonrenewable resource. Plastics are a by-product of the oil-refining process, accounting for 4% of oil production around the globe. (www.greenhouseneutralfoundation.org)

2. Enviornmental impact--20% of the plastic bags used are not properly disposed of so they end up as debris and litter. Plastic bags that end up in the ocean cause a threat to marine life, when it's ingested it causes damage to ocean animals digestion. (www.enviroliteracy.org)

3.
So the next time you're asked "Paper or plastic" consider some of the pros and cons of both and make the decision that makes the most sense for you. Or better yet bring your own reusable bags!