Paper vs Plastic, Today vs Tomorrow

From Ready Made magazine, Oct / Nov 2007 (thanks Janet!)

Riddle me this ..
When is a shopping bag the same as the contents of a gas pump?
When we decide it’s okay to continue overusing it provided it’s made of something else.

Paper Vs Plastic
There are more and more communities discussing legislation restricting the use of plastic bags in favour of paper, under the premise of paper being the slightly lesser of two evils …



Paper
- costs 4-9 cents to make made from a renewable source, but the process of making creates are and water pollutants
- takes a month to decompose
- uses 40% more energy to produce and 90% more energy to recycle, than plastic
- recycled about 20% of the time

Plastic
- costs 2 cents to produce
- requires less energy to produce though manufacturing process results in polluting effluents
- takes 1,000 years to decompose
- consumes one-tenth the landfill space
- recycled about 1% of the time

So, just as changing the fuel we use is not as good as using less fuel, why not skip the entire debate (including the future one which will be paper vs some other product like cornstarch), and shut down another unnecessary industry (after bottling water). Choose any reusable carrier that suits your lifestyle; fabric or mesh bags, plastic bins, baskets.

And while you’re at it, maybe choose something that hasn’t travelled half way around the globe to get to you.