Local high school Civics students came up with an ordinance that would ban plastic shopping bags in our town. They presented their proposal to a group of voters arguing that, while the impact would be small, it would make people think about the saving energy if they either (a) got a paper bag, or (b) were forced to remember to take a reusable bag from their cars (typically a 6,000-lb. pavement-melting SUV, but occasionally a virtuous Prius or Tesla).
A lady who seemed to be in her 60s asked them how they would address voters who pointed out that it was more energy-efficient to use disposable plastic bags than either paper bags or heavy-duty tote bags (this Atlantic article gives some background; a cotton tote bag is more energy efficient… after 327 uses (but maybe also good as a biology experiment after holding leaking containers 327 times?)).
Despite the fact that this ordinance was the centerpiece of a year-long high school class, it turned out that the teacher had not supplied any any numbers quantifying the potential energy use impact of an ordinance that was being touted as fighting “climate change.”
Related:
Not to mention that single-use plastic bags are often repurposed as trash bags, and their elimination means people need to buy actual trash bags, which means the net use of plastic remains the same.
Some of the comments in the cited article are instructive. E.g., it seems the study assumed that 1 plastic bag = 1 tote, which is not necessarily the case as totes tend to be both stronger and larger. Additionally, the fetish over bag sterility is a ruse (people claim to worry about bacteria after their food has been sitting on the conveyor belt at the checkout stand??). From experience it takes quite awhile for a bag to get too dirty to put packaged food in, and then all you have to do is drop the bag in the load of laundry you’re already doing. I’m not dismissing your main point, that benefits and costs should be quantified. Perhaps this class didn’t do any math, but then, you didn’t either.
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=why+ban+single+use+plastic+bags&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Because it’s more than just the bag, it’s what happens to many/most bags that’s the problem.
http://www.cleanwateraction.org/sites/default/files/CA_Fact%20Sheet_final_0.pdf
Wow #2. So if someone visits supermarket once in 2 weeks and let’s say buys 10 bags worth of goods then it would take about 12 years to get energy tie with plastic bags and those 10 bags need to be stored and not lost for 12 years, and what if you need an extra bag once in a while? And great that you have energy-replacing washer. In my book you need to spend some extra energy to wash more things. Not to mention it may not be a best sanitary practice to mix bags with other laundry.
In California we have gone through the following cycle:
Free paper bags
Paper is bad for trees and the environment!
Free plastic bags (touted as a green alternative)
Save the turtles! Plastic bags are a menace!
Plastic bags banned!
Paper bags are available, but they are forced to charge you for them
I’m convinced this is all the work of bag-lobbies
I use my backpack when I go shopping (one of those annoyingly excellent things not at the easy reach of the general population that are both light, can be adjusted for volume and carry a lot if needed). Because my backpack did cost more than either a plastic bag or a tote bag, it will be with me forever. I can carry one week of groceries + anything I can think of (half an elk? a child? a whole deer?), with the only limit being my ability to carry the load. Loads are carried with backpacks, not bags.
“Learning to think with your heart” is a great metaphor. Or–was it a metaphor?
As the first commenter said – the comments in the article are instructive.
It looks like, using different (more realistic?) assumptions, a reusable tote is more energy efficient after only 14 uses. Given the relatively small amount plastic bags hold, it could be that a paper bag is more efficient after closer to 1-2 uses.
So, using different numbers, this Atlantic article makes me want to use reusable totes, which I don’t do now.
Energy use is irrelevant. Reusable bags are about virtue signalling. The only thing better than virtue signaling is forcing all of your neighbors to virtue signal.
I don’t know about bags but many resources (e.g. water, phosphorous) get used mainly in agriculture and industry, so that even if consumers cut their consumption to zero (by for example being forced to use zero phosphorous dishwasher detergent that no longer cleans their dishes) it would hardly make a noticeable dent. But “reminding” millions of consumers of the virtuousness of environmental advocates every time they look at their cloudy drinking glasses is much more important than actual phosphorous levels in the streams.