Remember the days when the person at the checkout asked you “Paper or plastic?” Today you have to specifically ask for paper bag, and honestly, as much as you may think you are helping the environment by choosing paper over plastic, you really aren’t helping at all. To actually help the environment, you need to ideally use organically grown re-usable fiber bags.
Whoa, that’s a mouthful. But let’s look at the facts about plastic and paper bags first.
Plastic bags are made from non-renewable petroleum products. They also require a lot of chemicals to produce them and many of these chemicals are toxic. Plastics also produce 14% of the toxic air pollutants in the United States each year.
After their initial use, plastic bags are most likely to end up in landfills where they will last several lifetimes. If they don’t end up in a landfill, it is most likely due to the fact that plastic bags are prone to blowing away in the slightest breeze. So…they aren’t spending a hundred years in a landfill, they are now litter and can pose a danger to wildlife.
Most people think that paper bags are far more eco-friendly because paper is a renewable resource. Problem is that paper bags aren’t made of just paper; they are coated with plastic to increase their strength; and there we have the problem of disposing of a petroleum based product again.
OK yes, paper is made from trees which are a renewable resource, but let’s be real, trees don’t grow overnight. Many paper companies use clear cutting policies for harvesting their trees. This means that hundreds of acres of land are left fallow until these paper companies replant the land; and then the trees take 15 years or more to mature to a merchantable size.
Organically grown reusable fiber bags are the way to go to reduce plastic productions and to help save trees. There are no chemicals used in the growing of the cotton, which is the usual fiber in these bags, and they can be used for years of shopping trips, not only to the grocery store, but to any store you happen to find yourself in.
There are many stores where you can find organically grown re-usable fiber bags, one of those being Whole Foods. There are online stores that sell reusable shopping bags; it’s not hard to find them. Once you do buy them, use them and after you get home from the store and empty them, put them back in your car to ensure that you don’t forget them on your next shopping trip. It doesn’t help the environment if you buy organically grown reusable fiber bags, just to forget them at home when you go out shopping!