Paper, Plastic or Cloth?

You're at the grocery store, about to pay for your food, and you get that nerve-wrecking question, "Paper or plastic?". If you care about the environment, you take a mintute to decide which would be more environmently friendly. Paper seems to be more easily recycable, but what about those trees? Plastic seems to be a no-no, because you've seen so many stray, plastic bags littered across the streets and don't want to contribute to that mess. Besides, it seems like it takes a lot more work to make plastic bags, because they're made of artificial material. And it's mostly likely less recycable because of that... Paper it is!
With so much information out there on the debate of "Paper or Plastic," it's hard to determine which would have the least effect on the environment. While paper bags may seem to be a better alternative to plastic, paper bags have their own downside. Looking past the fact that the production of paper bags is contributing to our dwindling forests, paper bag production produces more greenhouse gas than plastic bag production. Paper bags use 3.4 times more energy and 17 times more water to produce than plastic bags. But plastic bags are made of a non-renewable source, polyethylene, and take hundreds of years to break down. Plastic bags take up less landfill space than paper bags, but the comparison of the evils of both paper and plastic bags could go on forever! Why don't we just switch to cloth?
By using and reusing cloth bags, we could really decrease our carbon footprint. Think about it. Using the same bag, everytime we shopped, would save a lot of resources. Instead of choosing either paper or plastic, we've elevated to the choice of cloth. Cloth that can be reused time and time again, would lessen our carbon footprint by a whole lot.