Pick Your Poison: Plastic or Paper?

When I first heard about our assignment to assess which was better for the environment: a paper bag or plastic bag? I thought to myself, “Okay, this shouldn’t be too hard. It’s obviously paper because paper can get recycled. Not to mention that plastic isn’t biodegradable and is very harmful to the environment.” After doing some research, I was astonished to discover that my first assumption was grossly incorrect. Actually, both plastic and paper bags use up tons of natural resources to make and cause great amounts of pollution. Paper bags utilize 4 times as much energy to create compared to plastic bags and surprisingly the toxins used in the production of paper contributes more pollution to the air and water than plastic. But wait, you can recycle paper right? Well that’s what I thought too. What I hadn’t realized was that the process to return paper back into its pulp form actually utilized more than 98% more energy than it would to recycle plastic. At this point, my theory that using paper bags instead of plastic bags would be better for the environment came totally undone. So then, if it seemed that paper had an overall larger contribution to pollution and energy consumption, then I should choose plastic, right? Lucky for me, there’s a whole new category that I hadn’t really thought about: reusable bags!

For those who are pro “go green”, reusable bags would seem to be the best choice since you could reuse it multiple times and you wouldn’t be adding as much junk into the environment compared to if you chose plastic or paper bags. The downside to reusing bags is that you’d have to bring it with you to the store, and if you have to buy lots of groceries, would you have enough reusable bags for all needed to buy? Also, I was talking to my friend about this issue and she mentioned that using reusable bags could be a cause for carrying germs. Lets say bacteria imbedded itself into the reusable bag, the next time you use that bag to transport goodies, the bacteria could be passed on and transferred to the new foods. Thus it seems that while reusable bags are better environmentally, it doesn’t mean it’s beneficial on a personal level. Why does it seem like there isn’t really one good answer but a monopoly of picking the lesser of two evils?