The Homa Files

TakeAway: Studies suggest that much maligned plastic bags aren’t so bad for the environment after all … as long as they get recycled.

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Excerpted from WSJ, “ Paper or Plastic? A New Look at the Bag Scourge”, June 12, 2009

When plastic grocery bags were introduced some 30 years ago, they were touted as light, long-lasting and cheap. They caught on so well that hundreds of billions are dispensed each year, creating a modern menace that often winds up nestled in trees, stuck in sewers and drifting in oceans.

Faced with the growing blight, countries from Ireland to China and cities from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., have moved to ban or tax their use. A United Nations official called for outlawing them world-wide.

There is growing evidence that the production, use and disposal of plastic bags put less burden on natural resources than paper bags. Meanwhile, a knock against plastic bags — that they can’t be conveniently recycled — is becoming less persuasive as more cities start accepting plastic bags in curbside recycling programs.

Most American consumers .. go through five or 10 plastic bags each week.  More than 90% of Americans reuse their bags at least once … for lining wastebasket,  carrying lunches, or from or cleaning up after a dog.

Various studies have examined whether paper or plastic grocery bags are environmentally friendlier. Plastic bags consume less energy and water and produce less pollution, including greenhouse-gas emissions. But, plastic bags  are rarely recycled. But plastic bags are recycled at less than one-third the rate of paper bags.

Plastic bags are difficult to recycle for the same reasons they are convenient to use. They are so light they fly out of curbside recycling bins, which often lack lids. If they make it to a recycling plant, the bags tend to wrap themselves around machinery, gumming it up. So, most curbside recycling programs don’t accept them.

U.S. cities that accept the bags in their recycling bins typically ask residents to stuff a lot of bags inside one bag, sausage-like, to make the bags easier for recycling workers to handle. It’s what industry insiders call a “bag of bags.”

Virtually all studies say the environmentally friendliest option is to choose a reusable grocery bag, and to reuse it at least 4 times, regardless of what that bag is made of.

Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124473522987806581.html?mod=djemalert

This entry was posted on June 26, 2009 at 7:18 am and is filed under Environment - Green. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.