Are Paper Bags Really Better for the Environment Than Plastic Bags?

“A 2011 study commissioned by the U.K.’s Environment Agency found that “the paper bag has to be used four or more times to reduce its global warming potential to below that of the conventional [plastic] bag.””

“Other factors include transportation and disposal. Two thousand single-use plastic bags weigh about 30 pounds, while 2,000 paper bags weigh 280 pounds. By one estimate, it takes seven trucks to transport the same number of paper bags as one truck loaded with plastic bags. Paper bags also take up more space in landfills.”

” A 2020 United Nations Environment Programme report looked at several life-cycle analyses published since 2010. “Paper bags contribute less to the impacts of littering,” it concluded, “but in most cases have a larger impact on the climate, eutrophication and acidification.””

Plastic Bag Bans Do More Harm Than Good

“suddenly, politicians are canceling their bans. Instead, they’re banning the once praised reusable bags.
It’s because of COVID-19, of course.

Reusable bags already brought bacteria into stores. We’re supposed to wash them, but almost no one does. Studies found reusable bags crawling with dangerous bacteria. After plastic bags were banned in San Francisco, food poisoning deaths increased sharply.”

“People think America is running out of room for landfills, but that’s not true.

“All America’s trash for the next century would fit in one landfill just 18 miles square,” says environmental economist Ross McKitrick. Landfills take up so little space that “if you look the air you wouldn’t even be able to see where landfills are.”

And modern landfills hardly pollute. They’re surrounded by layers of clay and plastic that keep nasty stuff in the garbage from leaking out.

But what about all that plastic in the ocean?

Plastic bags are sometimes eaten by animals. Some sea turtles mistake the bags for jellyfish and then starve. Islands of floating garbage have formed in the Pacific Ocean.

Green groups have convinced Americans that we are to blame.

But we aren’t! Even if you litter—and today, fewer Americans do—your litter is unlikely to end up in an ocean.

Almost all the plastic in oceans comes from Asia and Africa. Less than 1 percent comes from North America.”