I’ve been seeing a number of web sites that seem to make it clear that plastic bags are actually greener than paper bags. But I’m wondering if there is an advantage to plastic that no one has mentioned, carbon sequestration.
Critics say that one of the disadvantages of plastic bags is that they will last “1000 years”. Plastic bags that biodegrade faster however end up releasing carbon dioxide back into the environment contributing to global warming. It seems to me that if they buried plastic bags in places where they won’t degrade they could take carbon permanently out of the environment. 2 birds – 1 stone.
What am I missing?
You’re missing the fact that plastic is made from oil pumped out of the ground. This oil already represents “sequestered carbon”. No CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by the plastic bags. In fact, more is probably added during the manufacturing process, but what do I know.
One way to “sequester carbon” would be to plant trees, cut them down to make paper, print a lot of books and store the books in libraries. Plant trees again and the cycle continues.
But plastic can be made from hay, switch grass, or hemp. It doesn’t have to be made from oil.
Bigby–exactly so. And I’m not even sure Mark is kidding. Too many people are wedded to the status quo finding all kinds of arguments/questions to bolster their denial.
So, on another level, what you are missing is the OVERWHELMING NEED to get off burning sequestered carbon.
Our future will either be green or not at all.
Markey Poo–you are playing games. Who you trying to zoom?
I think that you are missing the fact that the carbon in the bags was never in the air to begin with, but was sequestered in the form of petroleum for millions of years.
Paper, made from trees, or hemp, or some other agricultural product should be carbon neutral, as the same carbon that goes into the growing of the plant is what gets released when the bag rots or is burned or whatever. The plant material will rot or burn eventually whether it is turned into paper or not, releasing the same carbon.
It depends of course on the time frame. A tree can absorb and store carbon for a couple of hundred years, if allowed to grow, but at some point, it will either burn or rot. If you are growing trees on a plantation and harvesting them at the same rate as growing new ones, everything should equal out.
Sure, you can make plastic material out of a lot of different polymers, but afaik all plastics made from vegetable sources are biodegradable. Doesn’t change very much.
A potential solution would be to modify the polymer chemically to prevent it prom being degraded. In the end, however, there will always be some microbe that can degrade your modified polymer. It’s not an easy problem to solve…
It would be “stupid” to make anything non-biodegradable as a permanent storage technique for carbon regardless of source.
Everything has a consequence.
On a related issue: do you know your Cable Box uses more electricity than your average refrigerator, and unlike the refrigerator, most of it is wasted? Dylan Ratigan repeats regularly that the USA is about 30% energy “efficient” compared to Europe at 70% and Japan at 90%. ((Don’t quote the numbers–just the comparison)) I tend to think he is playing games/not making correct comparison until I read articles like this one.
Isn’t it stupid to waste a resource, even when we have the money to do so?
http://nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26cable.html?src=me&ref=general
Sure, that may be a good idea, but how many of the bags actually do get buried instead of blowing around, snagging in trees, etc.?
“But plastic can be made from hay, switch grass, or hemp. It doesn’t have to be made from oil.”
Okay, but how much of the plastic the U.S. uses every day comes from any or all of these sources? My guess is less than one percent.
I recycle my plastic bags by using them to strangle panda bears.
The main problem with those plastic bags is that they seem to reproduce. I once had one or two, and now there are hundreds!
Doesn’t “everyone” use these bags as trash bin liners and food freezer storage? I save and use all mine that way–hardly can keep enough in stock. Meanwhile, my neighbor on welfare uses those expensive stretchy bags that can catch a piano. Different strokes.
I think I tried once to melt plastic bags as a kind of “hot glue.” If memory serves, it simply cooled into a hard plastic disk after setting off a lot of dark toxic fumes?
I need to open my window and give that process another whirl. Any of you chemists know what such plastic might be good for?
If you can argue that stable plastic bags are good you could also perhaps argue that the bodies of dead children decompose and release greenhouse gases so therefore children are bad.
Well that’s a loaded question for sure. Plastic is made from the waste products of oil refining. As we are not weaned off of oil for fuel yet, it would be a waste not to make something so useful from the refinery waste. As well, plastic re-sequesters at least some of the oil. As for modern landfills, nothing biodegrades in them anymore because the waste is isolated from air and water to prevent groundwater contamination and air pollution. So the difference is, landfills are 50% paper waste, plastics just 10% by volume. Plastic is lighter and compresses better.
As for the human factor, people are generally pigs when it comes to trash. Plastic bags are bad because people don’t take enough care with ANY of their garbage. Paper blows away just like plastic, but it breaks down and disappears quicker. Plastic will blow into our lakes and oceans and will kill marine life. If people weren’t such pigs, plastic would be preferable. Overall paper costs way more energy to produce and transport. Plastic bags cost 7X the transportation costs of plastic bags by weight and volume. Plastic bags are often reused several times before trashing, where paper bags are mostly used just once, further widening the energy difference.
However, neither are necessary or desirable. Even the reusable plastic shopping bags you can buy now don’t last long if you are carrying heavy items and/or comething leaks. Worst and most unhealthy is when you haven’t noticed that meat has leaked blood. People are getting sick.
I have used neither for almost 18 years now. I bought about 6 sturdy plastic baskets (similar but stronger than laundry baskets) and put them in my car when we go shopping. All the groceries at the checkout go right back into the shopping cart, which speeds up the checkout line as well. We empty the shopping cart into the baskets right at the car. The baskets are easily cleaned with a hose or soap and water if something leaks and they are still in pretty good shape after all that time and use.
Skeptic–very green of you. Kudo’s. Do you have a set top cable tv box? Do you unplug it at night? Do you line your “wet trash/vegetable garbage” or disposal it down the drain?
but more thread worthy: what you talkin’ bout “refinery waste?” No use for what makes plastic bags except to put it in a landfill? They don’t make other plastics with it like carpeting or clothing?
Waste??
I’ve invented a new car engine that uses plastic grocery bags for fuel. It gets 1 mile per bag. Since a bag costs around 2 cents, that means you can go 100 miles for $2.
Now all we have to do is burn a lot of fuel to make nitrogen-based fertilizer, then grow a bunch of corn, turn it into corn oil, then make a whole lotta plastic bags.
Wait, that doesn’t sound very efficient to me. Never mind.
Forgot the “Islands” of plastic refuse floating in the oceans !!! Kills sea life !!!
Nothing, plastic bags are greener by some measures than paper however if you bury either in an airtight landfill both will store CO2. Modern landfills are carbon sinks. That most greens are completely oblivious to this suggests that most greens don’t do science except in the most superficial way. Instead they depend on their cult leaders to keep them in the know and men like Gore while skilled business people aren’t into hard science either.
“that plastic bags are actually greener that paper bags.”
A common typo.
But one that leaps out to fresh eyes.
Recommendation: Run these stories past fresh eyes before posting.
We’ve been told the landfills are full and there isn’t any room to bury more trash….especially trash that will never disintegrate or decompose. But that information may not be accurate as it comes from people who say the earth is over populated and ‘controls’ need to be put in place.
#14, bobbo, No set top cable TV box. All “wet trash/vegetable garbage” goes in a small kitchen pail, and then to one of our composters out back. Our family of 5 has always only produced about one regular size green garbage bag every 2 weeks. All glass, plastic, paper and cardboard have been separated and recycled or reused for 30 years or more.
“Waste” for the gaseous alkenes used to make plastic was a poor word choice. Maybe a better term would be “convenient by-product”. Only about 1.5% of crude oil is used to make plastic. If we stop making fuel from crude, I suspect there isn’t enough suitable biomass available to fill a fraction of our current demand. If anyone feels like checking that out….
Cigarettes are good for you.
Sleeper is the movie that established the little known fact.
You are missing an “n.”
I also wondered about paper grocery sacks.
I once visited a paper pulp plant and it hardly seemed green. That was a couple decades ago, however.
Seems like cloth bags are the best but they can kill you!
http://tinyurl.com/2er47e8
(OK, maybe not kill you. But they should probably be washed, which also uses resources.)
>> Publius said, on June 27th, 2011 at 3:42 pm
>> Cigarettes are good for you.
And didn’t that top scientist say radiation leaks are good for you as well?
Ecotards are racist. They hate carbon because it’s black. I prefer to light up bags of charcoal and not even cook anything on it – simply release the carbon. Sometimes I burn plastic bags on it for extra aroma.
I don’t have the bandwidth to research it now but, years ago whebn “paper or plastic” was a common question, my hippie (not hippy – skinny broad) claimed the final energy used to produce a paper bag and the pollution released into the world, were higher than for a plastic bag. I’d be willing to wager (a very small amount) that the amount of petroleum used to harvest and process trees into paper is about the same as what is used to make olastic bags. Dunno fer sure …
# 11 bobbo,”Any of you chemists know what such plastic might be good for?” I’m not a chemist but I played one in pre-med. A couple of decades ago, I helped take care of the Cuban and Haitian refugees being held at Gitmo. They would melt the plastic in an old tin can. After cooling, they had a slug of plastic they would carve into trinkets and some surprisingly sophisticated sculptures. I still have a couple. Admittedly, much of the plastic was heavy duty bags used to contain MRE rations. This might not work with the flimsy sacks they give you at 7-11. And we cared for more than one serious burn from spilling molten plastic on feet or hands! Not nice.
Heading back into the jungle today. Have fun guys. See you in a couple of weeks.
I think plastic bags could be GREAT for the environment if they were tied around the heads of certain people.
#20 Skeptic —- you deballed #14 who was obviously trying to deflate your stated deeds by hoping to point out that you don’t do what 99,999 out of a 100,000 of the rest of everyone else doesn’t do either. And good for you.
And here is my “but”. I hope you haven’t bought into the claim that there is proof that anthropomorphic carbon is even a minor contributor to global warming. (Is it OK to say “global warming” here instead of “climate change”?)
The way you effect your presence on earth should be emulated by people regardless of bogus AGW claims.
Don’t worry, the salmonella that cloth bags carry around will kill far more people than global warming ever will.
People exhale carbon dioxide and plants and trees use it to produce oxygen. So produce all you want. They’ll just be more oxygen and bigger trees! 🙂