Paper, Plastic, or Reusable Bags? The Final Answer
- David Wills
- Sep 14, 2023
- 4 min read
The best bags to use are the ones you already own. Full stop. Any new bag will automatically take its toll on the environment, so reusing bags you already own is best.
However, oftentimes we might be checking out in line when we realize we’ve left our bags in the car or at home. When faced with this dilemma, should we bag our items with paper bags, plastic bags, or a newly purchased reusable bag?
The answer isn’t so straightforward. In order to get to the bottom of this, let’s look at the environmental impact of each. Throughout this article, I will be referencing two studies (a 2011 study by the UK’s Environmental Agency and a 2018 study by Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency), both of which reported different reusability metrics for paper, plastic, and reusable bags.
If you’re not interested in the nitty gritty, skip down to the end of the article where I’ll give the overview.
Reusable Bags
Let’s start with reusable bags because our intuitions say that reusable bags are always better. However, this isn’t always the case, and there are certainly different degrees.
Cotton Bags
First off, there are multiple different types of reusable bags. Cotton reusable bags are generally the most popular because they’re the sturdiest, however this sturdiness comes at a cost. Cotton bags take the highest environmental toll of any bag: a cotton bag needs to be reused between 131 - 7,100 times to break even with the environmental impact of a conventional plastic bag, depending on whether you take into account the large amount of water and pesticides required to grow cotton. That means that if you’re going to use a cotton bag, you should be using it for life.
Nonwoven Polypropylene Bags
Another form of reusable bag is made with nonwoven polypropylene (PP), a form of plastic that is much less carbon-intensive than cotton bags. Nonwoven polypropylene bags need to be reused between 11 - 37 times before they break even with a plastic bag, which is substantially less than cotton bags. And while these bags may not feel as sturdy, they definitely hold up to wear and tear quite well.
Plastic Bags
Next, let’s look at the conventional plastic bag. We’re all familiar with these, as they’re the most common form of single-use bag in grocery stores today.
Plastic bags are made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE). They are made with the finite resource petroleum, the same thing that fuels gas-powered cars (in fact, the gas it takes to drive one mile creates just 14 plastic bags). Despite oil’s bad reputation, plastic bag production actually results in less carbon emissions, waste, and harmful byproducts than cotton or paper bag production.
However, this comes at a cost: plastic bags are one of the single greatest contributors to landfills in the world. The world produces 500,000,000,000 plastic bags each year, and even though they’re made of plastic, they are made with a certain kind of plastic that cannot typically be recycled in your blue bins.
Not all hope is lost, though, as many grocery stores offer drop-off bins where you can recycle your single-use plastic bags (you can find one near you using this website). And you should recycle plastic bags this way - plastic bags aren’t biodegradable, so if they end up in a landfill somewhere, they’re going to stay there for hundreds, if not thousands, of years and potentially endanger wildlife due to the breaking down of potentially harmful microplastics.
Paper Bags
Last, we’ll look at paper bags. I’ll admit: my intuitions were completely wrong on paper bags. I thought because they were made of paper, they were recyclable and thus automatically better for the planet. And while they are biodegradable (and therefore recyclable and compostable), the full story is more complicated.
Paper bags take 4x as much energy to produce as a conventional plastic bag, not to mention the additional chemicals and fertilizers required that can create even more environmental damage. A paper bag needs to be reused between 3 - 43 times to neutralize its impact when compared to a plastic bag, however due to their delicate nature, they are more likely to break, making it more difficult to reuse. While they are recyclable, there is a limit to how many times a paper bag can be recycled before the materials become unusable and thrown in garbage chutes.
The Final Answer
As I said at the top of this article, the best bag to use is the one you already own, so we should all strive to reuse our bags every time we go to the store.
If you own less than five reusable bags, the next best bag to use is a reusable bag made with nonwoven polypropylene (PP), which needs to be reused at least 11 times to break even with the environmental impact of a traditional plastic bag. You can also buy a reusable bag made from cotton, however be aware that it will need to be reused at least 131 times to break even with the impact of a plastic bag.
If you already own five reusable bags and just forgot to bring them into the store, the best option for most people is to use conventional plastic bags. These plastic bags are sturdy and reusable and have a quarter of the environmental impact of a paper bag, and while they cannot typically be recycled in your blue bin, you can bring them to a store that offers recycling programs for plastic bags and film grains (check out this website to find a location near you).
Conclusion
Regardless of which bag you use, it’s vitally important that you use them as much as you possibly can before recycling them properly. Bags simply aren’t going away anytime soon, but if we are smart with how we use these bags, we can drastically reduce our environmental footprint without sacrificing usability.
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