Paper vs plastic vs cloth

 "Waste isn't waste until we waste it."

You've filled up your cart and made it to front of the grocery line when you are confronted with yet another choice: what kind of bag should you use? If you have seen the image of plastic bags strewn across the ocean, it might seen obvious that plastic is bad for the environment. Surely a paper bag or a cotton tote would be the better option. But is that really true?

Each of this three materials has a unique environmental impact that is determined by its carbon footprint, its potential to be reused  and recycled, and its degradability. So to get the full story of these grocery bags we need to look that how they're made, how they are used and where they ultimately go. Let start with plastic. The typical thin and flimsy plastic bag is made of high density polyethylene, commonly known as HDPE. Producing this material requires extracting petroleum from the ground and applying extreme heat alongside additional ingredients like titanium oxide and chalk to a bag manufacturing plant. Here, cold powered machines melt the materials down and spin them into sheets of plastic, which are then folded into bags. By the time the bag reaches its final destination, it contributed an estimate 1.6kg of carbon dioxide to atmosphere. That's the same amount of carbon a car produces driving a little over 6 km's. But the alternatives actually possess a much larger carbon footprint.

Paper is made from wood pulp. When you account for the carbon cost of removing trees from their ecosystems, a single paper bag can be responsible for about 5.5 kg of carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, growing cotton is extremely energy and water intensive process. The production of a single cotton tote emits an estimated 272 kg of carbon dioxide. Ehen we compare carbon footprints, plastic bag are clear winner. 

But environmental impact is also determined by how the bag is used. Reusing or recycling this bag significantly offsets their environmental toll by reducing demand for new production. To quantify that offset, we can divide the bag's carbon footprint by the number of times its reused. Of these options, durable cotton totes are most likely to be reused. Paper bags are quickly discarded due to their tendency to tear. This issue is for plastic bags as well , but even if they are made to avoid tearing, their widespread availability makes it easy to treat them as a single use items. 

Whenever this bags aren't recycled, the third factor in calculating environmental impact comes into play: degradability. Paper bags and cotton totes break down in short time but plastic bags takes centuries to break down. So which bag should you use? 

It turns to that most environment friendly bags should have features like they should be durable and usable like cotton, but made of plastic, which has a lower carbon footprint. More importantly they should last for a long time making them best option for planet, and your groceries.