It’s easy to think of plastic as the villain. After all, there’s a growing number of cities and countries around the globe either banning them outright or proposing taxes and fees to discourage their use. Here’s a partial list: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Westport (Connecticut), Seattle, Portland, China, Ireland, Australia, and Italy.
And yet, the answer to that age-old question is not nearly as clear-cut as it may seem. Did you know, for example, that more energy is used to produce paper bags than their plastic counterparts? Making paper bags also requires a lot of water (not to mention trees).
The production of plastic bags is equally problematic. They’re made from oil (an estimated 12 million barrels a year just to produce those used in the U.S.). Another huge downside is that they can make their way into large bodies of water and harm marine life.
To guide you when to pick one over the other, click here.
