Damn, that hurts me to read haha. Like, I get the absent mindedness thing, but it’s a ridiculously easy step that if all 330 million people in the US (I assume that is also where you are from, sorry if I’m wrong) were to stop then it would actually have a tangible effect on resource consumption. Obviously that isn’t going to solve all of our problems, but the whole idea of ‘whatever, this is slightly more convenient’ should instead be ‘eh, it’s not that much of a hassle.’ I think that’s fully the fault of 100 years of that mindset being pushed down our throats in the form of CONSUME, but we’ve got to break free of it if there’s ever going to be a chance.
I’d be really interested to see a quantitative analysis of how much difference it would make if all 330mil of us swapped to renewable bags.
My gut is that paper bags are pretty clean overall, and that grocery bags are a tiny fraction of paper usage in the US. But I’d be really interested to be proven wrong.
My quick search keeps popping up the statistic of 14 million trees for 10 billion paper bags used annually in the US, but in 1999 so I’m sure that is higher. You’ve also got to consider the high energy usage and large environmental concerns of paper mills. I don’t know if you’ve ever been near a paper mill, but they’re known for their air pollution, they make entire towns stink.
ENERGY TO PRODUCE BAG ORIGINALLY (BTUs)
Safeway Plastic Bags: 594 BTUs
Safeway Paper Bags: 2511 BTUs
(Source: 1989 Plastic Recycling Directory, Society of Plastics Industry.)
I do think the BTUs portion is less concerning in the greater context. Both 600 and 2500 are negligible compared to, say, my daily commute, or a single plane trip, or basically any other activity that requires energy.
But the first part is kinda interesting. Doing some super sloppy back of the napkin math, I think that makes paper shopping bags about 6.5% of all paper products made in the US. Paper products account for around 50% of all wood products in the US, so call it just over 3% of total wood use (which may have gone up some due to increased prevalence of paper lately.)
Which isn’t nothing for sure. I would have guessed lower. I do think it may be overstating it to say we’d see a huge shift if everyone started using reusable bags overnight. A 3% drop in timber harvesting would be good, but not world changing I would think. But not insignificant either.
Again, I want to point out this is a minor change that you can make that if everyone did, would have a positive impact in this world. Huge impact, maybe not. But when our entire society is built to destroy the planet that we require for life, we need to remove as many cuts as possible.
I hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but conversations like this one are the reason that I have zero faith in humanity. It’s easy to point fingers as the obvious evil we have going on in the world, which clearly has more of a direct threat. But even if we were somehow able to rid the world of the truly despicable, we’d still be left with a world full of ‘its more of an impact than I thought, but still not so bad’ people. And our planet cannot continue on like that. It absolutely amazes me how many people (including good friends of mine) who think the same way. And there is no way to change this mindset, its as ingrained as any of the bigotry and hate on the other side. We just have no chance against this.
The timber part is no big deal - it’s all farmed trees and sawmill waste product. The water and energy use to make them, store them, ship them is more significant.
Damn, that hurts me to read haha. Like, I get the absent mindedness thing, but it’s a ridiculously easy step that if all 330 million people in the US (I assume that is also where you are from, sorry if I’m wrong) were to stop then it would actually have a tangible effect on resource consumption. Obviously that isn’t going to solve all of our problems, but the whole idea of ‘whatever, this is slightly more convenient’ should instead be ‘eh, it’s not that much of a hassle.’ I think that’s fully the fault of 100 years of that mindset being pushed down our throats in the form of CONSUME, but we’ve got to break free of it if there’s ever going to be a chance.
I’d be really interested to see a quantitative analysis of how much difference it would make if all 330mil of us swapped to renewable bags.
My gut is that paper bags are pretty clean overall, and that grocery bags are a tiny fraction of paper usage in the US. But I’d be really interested to be proven wrong.
My quick search keeps popping up the statistic of 14 million trees for 10 billion paper bags used annually in the US, but in 1999 so I’m sure that is higher. You’ve also got to consider the high energy usage and large environmental concerns of paper mills. I don’t know if you’ve ever been near a paper mill, but they’re known for their air pollution, they make entire towns stink.
This stat taken from http://www.forestecologynetwork.org/climate_change/plastic_or_paper.html
ENERGY TO PRODUCE BAG ORIGINALLY (BTUs) Safeway Plastic Bags: 594 BTUs Safeway Paper Bags: 2511 BTUs (Source: 1989 Plastic Recycling Directory, Society of Plastics Industry.)
I do think the BTUs portion is less concerning in the greater context. Both 600 and 2500 are negligible compared to, say, my daily commute, or a single plane trip, or basically any other activity that requires energy.
But the first part is kinda interesting. Doing some super sloppy back of the napkin math, I think that makes paper shopping bags about 6.5% of all paper products made in the US. Paper products account for around 50% of all wood products in the US, so call it just over 3% of total wood use (which may have gone up some due to increased prevalence of paper lately.)
Which isn’t nothing for sure. I would have guessed lower. I do think it may be overstating it to say we’d see a huge shift if everyone started using reusable bags overnight. A 3% drop in timber harvesting would be good, but not world changing I would think. But not insignificant either.
Again, I want to point out this is a minor change that you can make that if everyone did, would have a positive impact in this world. Huge impact, maybe not. But when our entire society is built to destroy the planet that we require for life, we need to remove as many cuts as possible.
I hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but conversations like this one are the reason that I have zero faith in humanity. It’s easy to point fingers as the obvious evil we have going on in the world, which clearly has more of a direct threat. But even if we were somehow able to rid the world of the truly despicable, we’d still be left with a world full of ‘its more of an impact than I thought, but still not so bad’ people. And our planet cannot continue on like that. It absolutely amazes me how many people (including good friends of mine) who think the same way. And there is no way to change this mindset, its as ingrained as any of the bigotry and hate on the other side. We just have no chance against this.
The timber part is no big deal - it’s all farmed trees and sawmill waste product. The water and energy use to make them, store them, ship them is more significant.