A plastic shopping bag weighs about 5 grams. Plastic product packaging does not weigh 1kg, not even close.
Second, the shape does matter. Bags are especially bad because they are large, thin and soft, they're easier to be carried away by wind or water, and easier for animals to get tangled in or mistaken for food.
Agreed they have to be reined in. But on the recycling side, they are spectacularly inefficient. They are bulky to recycle - they never lay down flat again. The entire semi trailer load at my recycle center probably weighs a couple hundred pounds of plastic, mostly air. They are very, very cheap to make and lots of trouble to recycle - its arguable the recycle cost is greater than the environmental cost of a new one.
Good thought. But the ecological (read: CO2) impact of paper bags and even cloth ones, are they clearly superior? I doubt it. Its just so dang cheap to make a WalMart bag.
No, do not read CO2. That's not what banning plastic bags is about. It's about not having them all over the environment where all kinds of animals, from sea turtles to cows to elephants, eat them or get entangled in them
I cannot imagine that the ecological impact of a canvas bag that gets reused hundreds of times is higher than hundreds of plastic bags that get used once.
CO2 production is also not the only impact. How much canvas is floating in the ocean and clogging up rivers?
I spent an hour or so researching the issue a long time ago and I seem to recall another study by a French supermarket chain. You need to reuse your cotton bags a lot -- hundreds of times is right -- for it to become worthwhile. Which is doable, of course.
And of course, the carbon footprint of both plastic bags as well as cotton bags varies wildly depending on the weight etc.
The polypropylene bags sold at many retailers (REI, Whole Foods, etc) only need to be used a few times to offset their increased cost of production.
“Nonwoven PP, on the other hand, is less costly than cotton. These bags need to be reused only 11 times to break even with the conventional plastic.”
Of course these are less durable that heavy cotton canvas. I doubt I could use one of these 200 times. I could definitely use a good canvas bag that many times.
How about I use a plastic bag twice? Now you have to use the canvas one 400 times.
Its just a losing gambit. You know how many shopping bags we have around the house? Supposed to save energy, but once you have 4 or 5 of them, you're up to a lifetime supply of plastic bags. And I'm sure we're not the only once.
You don’t have to use the canvas one 200 times. It’s more like 130. And less if you use nylon or hemp or anything less energy costly than cotton. But yeah, if you want to reuse your throwaway bags, go ahead. It’s certainly a greener option than throwing them out.
It’s not “eco-theater” to want to reduce the ecological cost of bags, though. Not is it “eco-theater” to want to keep millions of plastic bags out of the oceans and rivers, or out of storm drains where they cause clogs, or out of bushes and trees where they are just ugly.
I don't think people tend to use plastic bags twice. Instead they double bag.
And as I alluded to above, not all bags of the same material are made equal. The original British source has a range of 80-250g for cotton bags. The ones I use weigh in at less than 50g.
A plastic shopping bag weighs about 5 grams. Plastic product packaging does not weigh 1kg, not even close.
Second, the shape does matter. Bags are especially bad because they are large, thin and soft, they're easier to be carried away by wind or water, and easier for animals to get tangled in or mistaken for food.