Ryan Chartrand
Once a week or so each of us head to the local grocery store and peruse up and down the aisles debating various purchases like: American or Cheddar? Pulp or no pulp? Organic or not? After an hour or so of walking around aimlessly we head to the check-out stand, pay for our groceries and are faced with one final decision: paper or plastic? In terms of “eco-friendliness” this debate has continued for years. Let’s take a look at overall impact paper and plastic bags on our environment and the new and upcoming solutions to grocery transportation.
Paper bags were invented by Francis Wolle in 1852 and since then have been the standard when one thinks of a shopping bag. Paper comes from trees, a renewable resource, but is hardly a considered a sustainable industry. The process of making paper begins with cutting roads through forests for large machinery to cut down trees leaving a huge scar on local habitats. The logs then move to a mill where they dry for 3 years before being stripped of their bark. The logs are then cooked under high temperature and pressure and eventually “digested” with a limestone and sulfuric acid solution. This process results in a pulp which is mixed with 400 parts waters to 1 part pulp. The pulp “brew” is then dumped onto bronze wires where it dries and is eventually processed into paper. An estimated 14 million trees are cut down every year to make paper bags in the U.S. alone.
Making paper is a very intense process requiring exuberant amounts of water, energy, and fossil fuels (for logging machinery), not to mention the lasting harmful effects of deforestation. Paper bags will biodegrade, but the time it takes to decompose varies on depending how it is disposed. For example, paper will biodegrade in one month as litter, but can take hundreds of years in a landfill due to the lack of air needed for decomposition. Paper bags can be recycled and is similar to the creation or virgin paper, but also requires a great deal of chemicals, energy, and water.
Plastic bags are made from oil (a nonrenewable resource) and were first introduced to the grocery market in 1977. Plastic bags are durable, strong, inexpensive, use little water and chemicals, and require little energy to make. To make plastic, oil undergoes a biogeochemical manipulation to yield polymers which act “plastically.” Plastic bags are made from the type of plastic called polyethylene which is then melted, extruded and cut.
Up to four trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. One of plastic’s greatest assets is its ability to be recycled. To recycle, plastic is merely re-melted and reformed, but with only 0.5 percent of plastic bags being recycled, it is no surprise that landfills are overflowing. It is estimated that plastic bags take from 500 to 1,000 years to biodegrade in a landfill and around 20 years as litter.
Although the creation of plastic bags require 40 percent less energy, create 50 percent less pollution, and use 94 percent less water than paper bags, plastic bags come from politically unstable nonrenewable oil sources, and are linked to the death of 100,000 marine animals per year worldwide.
Fortunately, scientists and engineers have been working for years to develop corn based biodegradable bags which are now beginning to become economically feasible. Companies such as Biobags offer a variety of biodegradable bags of all shapes and sizes. Biobags claims that in a compost pile, its bags will decompose in 10 to 45 days and in fresh or salt water will degrade between 8 to 14 months.
Just recently (March 29, 2007), San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted 10 – 1 to ban plastic bags. The law will require grocery store bags to be biodegradable within six months and one year for pharmacies. The new bags will cost businesses 5 to 10 cents per bag compared with traditional plastic bags costing 2 to 3 cents per bag. This ban makes San Francisco the first major U.S. city to pass such a law, but not the first worldwide. Counties like Ireland and Bangladesh adopted similar bans on plastic bags years ago.
With the green revolution just beginning it will only be a matter of time before biodegradable bags are found in every household and business in America. Until then, there are options you have to reduce your environmental impact while shopping. To begin, try to use reusable canvas bags when shopping (many stores sell them close to the checkout). Also, if you bring your old paper bags for reuse, many stores will take 5 cents off your purchase per bag. Lastly, if you use plastic bags, be sure to reuse or recycle them. Happy shopping!