Let’s move on to one of the REAL Great Questions of Our Time.
Which is more environmentally friendly? How should we answer that pimply slacker at the end of the checkout line, as our groceries crowd together, awaiting their fate?
Both are recyclable. Use plastic, however, and some factory somewhere is releasing toxins into nature – right? Use paper, and you’re sealing the fate of forests.
I lean to paper, but I’m not exactly sure why. Paper bags are handy to store newspapers in for recycling. I occasionally get plastic, too, and save them up until I have a bunch and return them to the supermarket for recycling.
Paper or plastic? What’s the correct answer, and why?
Plastic. It has been shows that both are equally damaging/safe (just in different ways) and with plastic I can carry up to 10 bags at once up to my apartment by sliding the bag loops up my arms, and I recycle them by using them as liners for my small garbage cans.
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
One week, one day, 13 hours, 19 minutes and 26 seconds.
342 cigarettes not smoked, saving $42.77.
Life saved: 1 day, 4 hours, 30 minutes.
What Satan said and what Wendell said. But it appears that the choice you face in the checkout line is unimportant compared to the issue of how you got to the grocery store. For a thorough discussion of this and other day-to-day ecological issues, see The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices, issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists:
Down here in Jow-ja, the Georgia Pacific pine stands are no more forests than a golf course is a mountain meadow. It pisses me off to see those commercials with altrustic little kids professing how much their daddy (and by extension the paper company) cares about forests and the environment. That being said, perhaps if the demand for pulp paper was reduced, there would be real forests in place of pine plantations.
Does anyone have a cite for plastic bag use as a function of total plastic manufatured ? My new dishwasher looks as if it could be spun into about 10000 plastic bags. What about all the other containers that we put IN the plastic bags we bring home ?
A point in every direction is like no point at all
Since the environmental costs/benefits are nearly equal, I use the opportunity to add a bit of wonder to life; I always tell the ‘pimply slacker’ to, “Surprise me!” Nine times out of ten I get plastic.
Hemp, with loop handles and a nice rigid, flat bottom. So you can stand it up. I hate the way those plastic bags dump all your stuff out and it rolls under the car seats.
Hey, maybe I got a .com going here!
Peace,
mangeorge (Lemme see. 5br, 6ba, pool…)
Teach your kids to bungee jump.
One them might have to cross a bridge someday.
[Minor Hijack]
I recognize my Britney vs. Christina thread might not have been quite up to Kirk vs. Picard. Personally, I found it to be at least the equal of Batman vs. Superman, who are after all not even real. But I think it definitely beats out paper vs. plastic, and my thread was relegated to the mundane pointless stuff. Just had to say that. Anyhoo.
[/Minor Hijack]
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing and mean your mother.
There are overriding environmental implications to my question, which most of us are asked at least once a week.
What exactly is the significance of the Britney v. Christina debate? (Mundane … pointless … see the connection?)
(Oh, and for the record - they both are useless musically; both have flat tummies and nice butts; Christina has better eyes and a better pout; but Britney wins by two large bosoms.)
Paper is recyclable and most paper comes from the byproducts of producing sawtimber–squaring up the cylindrical logs and thinnings to reduce the number of trees per acre to concentrate growth on better quality trees. Thinnings also improve wildlife habitat by opening up the stand to sunlight and encouraging the growth of grasses and legumes. Some companies do grow timber in pulpwood rotations but not many as sawtimber makes more money.
If you don’t want to “destroy” forests, then build your houses and furniture out of plastic, steel, aluminum, and other non-renewable materials. Replacing wood fiber with hemp or stopping paper use will just increase the wood waste from creating lumber products. Reducing paper use is good for several reasons, the most important being reducing the use of landfill space required. Recycling paper helps, but the byproducts of recycling paper are very, very toxic.
I was under the impression that some of the plastic bags now being produced come from an annual crop like corn instead of from petroleum.
Hemp is much more environmentally destructive than timber production–erosion from timber production occurrs only for a brief time when logging–30-45 year rotations on pine in the Southern US, longer for hardwoods, and for species grown in the Northern and Western states. Since best management practices have been required, erosion is minimal during logging and in the Southern US is usually stopped by the rapid growth of native grasses and forbs following removal of a woody overstory. Paper companies and many other small private forest landowners reforest their property by the next winter after harvesting to make sure they are getting maximum return on their capital investment (land).
Any annual crop generates annual soil erosion–including hemp. Agricultural production and development are the two leading causes of soil erosion. Timber production doesn’t come anywhere close, especially since timber production requires streamside management zones to be left during harvests. Agriculture does not have this requirement (yet) and farmers can plow right next to the stream and don’t have to fence livestock out of streams.
Another plant recommended to replace wood is kenaf. It, too, has the drawback of annual soil erosion from its production.
My choice: plastic bags because they are easier to carry and I use them to line the small garbage cans. I used to recycle them when I lived in a town where the grocery stores kept a recycling bin handy.
Just like in most situations, there are many considerations and no easy answers.
I’m with mangeorge and Wendell Wagner on this one. Cloth bags are the way to go. (smilingjaws, assuming what you say is true about hemp being more environmentally destructive than timber production, nonetheless the bag has a much longer lifetime than the paper bag.)
I personally keep ten canvas bags in the trunk of my car, for use when I go grocery shopping. (Many grocery stores sell cloth bags for $3 or $4 each.) They’re much better than plastic bags, because what a grocery clerk can stuff in 10 plastic bags will probably fit in four of the canvas bags. So a lot less trips from the garage to the refrigerator! Plus the bags come in handy when you’re toting anything else heavy around.
In Europe (or at least in Switzerland), grocery stores won’t give you a bag, you have to bring your own or buy one. Not surprisingly, many people use the cloth bags.
Arnold wisely states;
“In Europe (or at least in Switzerland), grocery stores won’t give you a bag, you have to bring your own or buy one. Not surprisingly, many people use the cloth bags.”
Well, partly true. “No-till” farming doesn’t generate much, is any, erosion. And crops like hemp work well with no-till methods.
I’m sure smilingjaws knows that, but just forgot.
Here’s a long, but informative link; http://res2.agr.ca/london/gp/bmp/notillbmp.html
Peace,
mangeorge
