Not all bags are created equal

A few bananas here, a couple of apples there – it’s just so easy to use more and more plastic bags as we do our grocery shopping. On average, Germans use 71 plastic bags per person per year. The fact is, we don’t need to rely on bags made of one hundred percent plastic that can’t be recycled. There are plenty of environment friendly alternatives.

The common disposable plastic bag is anything but environmentally friendly. They’re made almost entirely of polyethylene plastic - a fossil oil derivative - which takes between 400 and 500 years to completely decay. That is way too long, says the EU Commission, and they’re demanding action.

A biodegradable plastic bag consisting of 70 percent crude oil and 30 percent biofuel sounds OK, but this kind of plastic can only be recycled a few times. Moreover, the cultivation of biofuel is very costly and also environmentally questionable.

There are disposable plastic bags made from 70 percent recycled polyethylene. In eco-jargon, their “Life-cycle assessment” (LCA) is better than most. That is, the number of times these bags can be recycled is higher than most. But most Germans don’t think to recycle these bags, so the benefit is lost.

From an environmental perspective, paper bags are not necessarily better than plastic bags. To make these bags strong enough that your groceries won’t fall through the bottom, a lot of chemicals are needed to produce particularly long and tear-resistant cellulose fibers. Recycled paper, on the other hand, is an improvement.

Fabric totes made from organic cotton, hemp, or flax can be used more often and thereby protect the environment. But the production of sturdy totes are more mineral and energy intensive than plastic bags. What’s more, given they are derived from plants, their cultivation requires a lot of water and arable land, like biofuels.

Sturdy, reusable plastics totes (polypropylene, polyester or polyterephthalate) are no worse than their fabric counterparts. A reusable tote bag made of polypropylene after three uses is more environmentally friendly than a disposable bag made of polyethylene.

An eco-friendly reusable product is a bag made of polyester. These bags fold up no larger than a mini-pack of tissues. They’re approximately 30 grams lighter than many disposable plastic bags and they can carry up to 4 kilograms.