Complex Numbers

Paper or Plastic?

Normally, I cheerfully ignore articles that claim "If you're doing x to help the environment instead of doing y, you're actually making things worse." I tend to assume they're coming from people who are trying to sell/promote y.

Your cotton tote is pretty much the worst replacement for a plastic bag  

Not so sure about this one, though.

And look, I get it. We got conned into low-flow toilets that use 1/3 less water, but you have to flush 3 times as often. And water-reducing shower heads that cut water use by 50% but you end up doubling the length of your shower.

As far as I can tell, though, LED bulbs are actually a good thing. But enough about that. Let's get back to shopping bags.

If you’re trying to contribute as little as possible to the two global calamities of climate change and the swirling gyres of forever-materials slowly filling our oceans, there’s a useful formula to keep in mind: Use fewer things, many times, and don’t buy new ones.

Also don't have kids, but for some reason no one ever mentions that.

But are plastic bags better or worse than paper? And what about a cotton tote? Let’s rip this bandaid off right away: There’s no easy answer.

Oh, good, the possibility of nuance. None of this "Wind farms kill birds and contribute to noise pollution so let's go back to coal, everyone!" "Signed, The Coal Industry."

The article goes on to lay out the pros and cons of our shopping bag choices.

The table below, using data from the Denmark study, compares the environmental performance of LDPE bags to other bags, assuming that the LDPE bags are reused once as a trash bin liner before being incinerated (incineration is the best possible disposal for these bags, according to the report).

Of course, you're going to have to go to the link to see the actual table. I have no idea how solid the information is, but let's take it at face value for now.

On a personal note, I get groceries delivered. Sometimes they show up in plastic bags. Some of said bags end up as trash bags. Most get dumped into the purposed recycling bin at the grocery store on the rare occasion that I can be arsed to go to the grocery store. What happens to them after that is Not My Problem.

Other times, the groceries come in paper bags, which end up in general paper recycling, and as far as I know, they actually get recycled.

The important numbers are at the bottom of that table I mentioned. To "have same cumulative environmental impact (water use, energy use, etc.) as a classic plastic bag," an organic cotton bag would need to be reused 20,000 times.

As a point of reference for that, 20,000 days is over half a century.

Cotton fabric can last a long time, but rarely that long if it sees frequent use. And that's assuming you use the tote every day, which is not a good assumption.

The report also assumed the cotton could not be recycled, since very little infrastructure exists for textile recycling.

Maybe it can be used as a cleaning rag when it becomes holey?

Plus, knowing how many resources it takes to make a piece of cotton, treat fabric items in your home like infinitely reusable resources worth their carbon-mitigating weight in gold. Find new uses for old clothes, use textiles until they wear out, and when you want something new, buy vintage.

Ahem.

Bite me.

Also, no. Don't put all this shit on us. All that does is shift responsibility. Individually, we're a bunch of dumb-asses, me included. Collectively, well, we're still a bunch of dumb-asses and, as the past year or so has taught us, there are significant numbers of people who will simply never go along with a program for the common good..That just puts an extra burden on the people who do. But when small groups of people get together with a financial incentive to do so, we can be quite clever. So take your it's-all-your-fault mentality and shove it; find a way to fix the problem at the source, not at the destination.