You've probably read about efforts to wean America off of those godawful plastic bags that you get every time that you buy anything from a book, to a loaf of bread, to a bottle of aspirin, to a pair of jeans. Good Magazine reports that:
Each of our featherweight plastic shopping bags carries a hefty cost: Americans use 100 billion plastic bags each year, and toss the majority of them after a quick trip to the store. Since the bags take nearly a millennium to break down in landfills, they'll be haunting the planet long after we tote home the groceries. Today, local governments pay to have wind-blown bags plucked from trees and telephone wires; in San Francisco, cleanup efforts run as high as $8 million a year. Plus, more than a million sea birds and a hundred thousand marine mammals suffocate from plastic litter each year. [Co-founder of California's Green Party, Ross Mirkarimi says,] "Long before I was elected, I've thought the plastic bag was emblematic of what our country and planet have been suffering from." Mirkarimi authored a bill banning the use of plastic bags in San Francisco and estimates that the plastic prohibition will save 450,000 galllson of oil and prevent 1,400 tons of trash from ending up in a landfilll.
Of course, net and cloth bags that you carry with you and re-use over and over are best for the environment. But paper bags, which biodegrade and are easily recyclable, are better than plastic. Many times, you really don't need any bag at all. You can slip the book into your purse or put the bottle of aspirin in your pocket. You can carry the gallon of milk by its handle and put it straight in the fridge when you get home. But if you're buying enough things that you need a bag, you know what to do the next time the clerk asks: "Paper or plastic?"
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