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ENVIRONMENT
What kind of reusable bag is best for
the planet?
A complete guide to carrying your groceries without
fueling climate change.
By Ula Chrobak
6 hours ago
One of these might be the
best way to tote your veggiesDeposit Photos
Cutting back on our reliance on single-use plastics increasingly
seems like a win for the environment. From furthering fossil fuel
dependence to harming marine life, the evidence of plastic’s far-
reaching impacts is mounting. One easy way for consumers to
reduce the amount of waste accumulating in landfills and water is
to switch to reusable shopping bags.
Or so you'd think. Even reusable bags come with environmental
costs, as many reports have shown. These reports, called life cycle
assessments, track the various impacts produced during
manufacture, transport, and disposal of different types of bags.
But they're not perfect, and fail to capture what happens to plastic
as litter or contamination in the recycling stream. With that in
mind, here's a breakdown of what we know about the impacts of
different bag materials.
Single-use plastic
Although these bags are made from oil and gas, they're also
lightweight and thin and therefore require relatively little
resources to make. On a bag-to-bag basis, life cycle assessments
tell us their impact to the environment is less than most reusable
bags. But that's provided that these bags are disposed of
correctly—returned to the grocery store for recycling or at least
properly landfilled. In reality, only less than five percent are
recycled and many become litter simply because they easily fly
away with a gentle breeze. When you do use these bags, the most
environmentally-friendly way to dispose of them is to recycle
them with other film plastics—just don't put them in your
curbside bin because they'll get tangled in machinery and
contaminate other materials.
Reusable plastic bags
These are the thicker plastic bags that are often sold for a few
cents in places that have banned single-use bags. Especially when
they're made of recycled material, they seem like a good
alternative to disposable bags. But the extra plastic means making
them requires more resources. So, you need to reuse them at least
eight times to match the environmental impact of single-use bags,
according to a study done for the state of California. And, as with
the single-use bags, it's still important to recycle them if possible.
In the United States, there's established recycling infrastructure
for polyethylene (the main substance in the bags) which can be
recycled 15 to 20 times.
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Polypropylene bags
These are the cloth-like totes available for cheap and often given
away as promotional items. A lot of us already have a bunch. They
need to reused 52 times before matching the impacts of single-use
plastic, though, according to a study from Denmark. But, while
that estimate might be accurate for Denmark, other studies have
found differently. For the same number of uses, the
aforementioned California study found non-woven polypropylene
bags "require significantly less energy, emit 87% less GHG, [and]
generate 91% less waste" than single-use plastic bags.
One downside of these bags is that they're generally not
recyclable. And given meat and dairy products can leak, creating a
nice petri dish of your bag, some experts have suggested that bags
carrying those foods should be washed once a week, which
requires a lot of water. (If it makes you feel better, most of
us never wash our bags.
Cotton totes
Since it's made of natural fibers, it might be intuitive to assume
cotton is eco-friendly. But pretty much all assessments comparing
bags agree that cotton totes have the worst impact. Cotton takes a
lot of water to grow, fertilizing it leads to river and ocean
pollution, and it is energy-intensive to convert the raw fibers to
textile. For a particular organic tote, the Denmark assessment
found that you'd have to reuse it 20,000 times to match the impact
of a single plastic bag. That really high number is based on a
ozone-depleting chemical used in manufacture (which some have
argued is an unrealistic representation of cotton manufacture). In
terms of contributing to global warming, the same totes only
needs to be reused 149 times. And, especially if you use if for
years, you'll still be cutting back on plastic pollution.
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Polyester
Essentially woven plastic, polyester makes for a convenient,
durable reusable bag material. It's easily folded or squeezed into a
stuff sack so you can always keep it with you. In the Denmark
study, the polyester bag only needed two reuses to match the
greenhouses gases emitted in making a single use bag, and 35
times for all impacts. It's still plastic, though, and those little
fibersmight be polluting the ocean with every wash.
Bioplastics
These are plastic-like materials made from biodegradable sources,
often corn. The raw materials are renewable, and—given the right
facilities are available in your area—they can be recycled into soil.
But they're not a great alternative to single-use plastic bags,
because it can take 42 reuses to have the same impact as a
traditional receptacle, as the Danish study reports. And if they're
not actually getting composted at an industrial-scale facility, they
can pollute the environment as litter, too.
Paper
Paper uses more water and energy to make than plastic. The
California assessment says that paper bags use three times the
nonrenewable energy, up to 17 times as much water, and release
twice the greenhouse gas emissions. And, since they’re typically
not reused many times (they rip), it’s hard to lower that impact.
When you do use them, they can be recycled via your curbside bin.
Overall, paper does avoid the pollution problems of plastic, but
isn’t a solid alternative.
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The verdict
No sack is perfect, but your best bet is using whatever reusable
bags you already have. If you have to buy new, opt for reusable
plastic, polypropylene, and polyester. Ultimately, the ideal bag is
the one you’ll actually use over and over
