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Have a green dilemma or question for Planet Green? Please send questions to askplanetgreen [at] gmail [dot] com. (Questions may be edited for publication.)
Dear Planet Green,
Does it really matter if you use reusable shopping bags?
—Totally Confused
Dear Totally Confused,
When you're in the checkout line getting ready to give in by allowing your ten grocery items to be packed into ten different plastic bags, consider this:
The number of marine mammals that die each year because of eating or being entangled in plastic bags is estimated to be around 100,000 in the North Pacific Ocean alone.
Between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year. Between 60 and 100 million barrels of oil are required to make those plastic bags each year.
And paper is really no better.
Paper uses trees, lots of trees. Making paper bags often involves clear cutting forests, which can result in the destruction of entire eco-systems. The United States was responsible for clear cutting 14 million trees to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used back in 1999.
The amount of harm that both paper and plastic bags cause cannot be underestimated and it's so easily preventable. Just use a reusable shopping bag. The difference in using a polyester bag or a polypropylene bag is negligible. Just skip the plastic, and the paper as well. Bring a reusable bag.
When you're picking a reusable bag, consider a bag that's small enough that you can keep it in your purse, like the Chico Bag. Also pick bags that are sturdy enough to last so you won't have to buy new ones all the time. These bags take energy to produce so just like every other sort of consumable you want them to last. Consider choosing a reusable bag made from recycled or renewable materials like GroPak, which is made with recycled plastic bags.
More on Plastic Bags:
How to Go Green: Back to Basics
99 Reuses for Plastic Bags
Plastic Bags
China Launches Crackdown on Plastic Bags
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