aplasticbag's Spot Follow

The Wall Street Journal reports recently that when plastic grocery bags were introduced some 30 years ago, they were touted as light, long-lasting and cheap. They caught on so well that hundreds of billions are dispensed each year, creating a modern menace that often winds up nestled in trees, stuck in sewers and drifting in oceans.

Faced with the growing blight, countries from Ireland to China and cities from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., have moved to ban or tax their use. Recently, a United Nations official called for outlawing them world-wide. Said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program: "There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere."

But nothing is simple in the push to protect the planet. There is growing evidence that the production, use and disposal of recyclable plastic bags put less burden on natural resources than paper bags. Meanwhile, a knock against plastic bags -- that they can't be conveniently recycled -- is becoming less persuasive as more cities start accepting plastic bags in curbside recycling programs.

That makes the cash-register question -- paper or plastic? -- more vexing than ever. "It depends on what environmental issues you see as being more important," says Lisa Mastny, who directs the consumption project at the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental group. "The things you can see in your daily life tend to create more of an emotional response than the things that are in the background."

What Ms. Mastny would prefer -- and what most studies agree is most beneficial to the environment -- is for shoppers to bring their own reusable bags to the grocery store. A reusable bag is better for the environment regardless of what it is made from, as long as it is used at least four times, according to a 2004 study by the French retailer Carrefour.

Still, most American consumers take plastic bags for granted. Sandi Palmer, a 34-year-old hospital secretary in Preston, Idaho, figures she goes through five or 10 of them each week, which estimates say is roughly in line with the average American. She typically reuses the bags as wastebasket liners, and then throws them away. The idea of banning or charging for disposable plastic bags to encourage the use of reusable sacks is "ridiculous," she says. "Why are they making the bag an issue?"

Some environmentally focused grocery stores, such as Whole Foods, report many of their shoppers have begun switching to reusable bags and green plastic bags, though they are still in the minority. More-mainstream grocers say relatively few of their customers use reusable bags.

Another option -- the compostable plastic bag, made of substances such as corn -- is no panacea, either. If it is accidentally recycled, it can contaminate the regular plastic it is recycled with. And to fully degrade, most compostable bags need to be sent to one of the relatively scarce food-waste composting facilities in the U.S.

Increasingly, cities and states seeking greener grocery stores are proposing taxes on all disposable bags. Seattle and Washington, D.C., are considering imposing fees on both paper and plastic bags. Other places, disinclined to saddle their voters with another prohibition or tax, recently have upgraded their curbside recycling programs to accommodate plastic bags.

Recycling rates for plastic bags exceed 30% in some European countries, notably Germany. But getting Americans to recycling their plastic grocery bags, even at home, takes effort.

U.S. cities that accept custom plastic bags in their recycling bins typically ask residents to stuff a lot of bags inside one bag, sausage-like, to make the bags easier for recycling workers to handle. It's what industry insiders call a "bag of bags."