Your Cotton Tote Bags Are in Order.
Last week, the New York Times ran an article by Grace Cook in which half of Twitter spoke of the “cotton bag crisis.” At the center of this article – and in numerous tweets promoting it – there is an alarming statistic: “An organic cotton bag needs to be used 20,000 times to offset its overall impact on production.” Naturally, this causes concern and bewilderment. Shouldn’t reusable bags be better for the environment than plastic ones?
Yes, and they are still there; even in context, 20,000 reuse is misleading. This study is called the Life Cycle Assessment of Grocery Bags and was published by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency in February 2018. (You can read the full study here if you like.) Let’s get it straight. …
Where did the figure 20,000 come from?
If you want to understand this number 20,000, it is helpful to know a little terminology. This type of study is called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which the authors describe as “a standardized methodology that takes into account the potential environmental impacts associated with the resources required to manufacture, use and dispose of a product, as well as potential emissions that may occur during its disposal ”. Here’s how they explain their method of calculating the amount of reuse:
The number of primary reuse times for each carry bag, end-of-life scenario and impact category was calculated on the assumption that X reuse of the carry bag avoided the corresponding X use of the LDPE reference carrier. bag with average characteristics.
For reference, “primary reuse” means the intended use of the package in which the products are stored.
Basically, the authors analyzed the environmental impacts of various types of grocery bags from the cradle (manufacturing plant) to the grave (recycling plant or incinerator). They then directly compared these results to data for an average, non-recyclable, LDPE grocery bag – the type that would say thank you in red letters.
The figure of 20,000 reuses is relative . This does not mean, as the New York Times article says, that you have to reuse an organic cotton bag 20,000 times to offset “its overall impact on production.” This means that one organic cotton bag has the same environmental impact as 20,000 plastic bags. This also means that it “saves” 20,000 packages, which the authors explicitly state in their executive summary: “[F] or every time a package is reused, it avoids the full lifecycle of the control package.”
In addition to being incorrectly reported, the number of 20,000 reuses is probably not as realistic for three important reasons. First, they doubled all the numbers for organic cotton bags because they are smaller in volume than the average LDPE bag, but only by about 2 liters. Cut that in half and you’re already up to 10,000 re-uses. Second, the study looked at 14 “impact categories,” one of which is ozone depletion. The authors attribute the high rates of reuse of cotton containers only to this category, mainly due to the electricity required to irrigate crops. Ozone depletion is still a concern , but the biggest threat right now is non-ozone-depleting CFCs; these are CO2 and methane emissions that contribute to climate change. If you look only at the climate change impact category, which is measured in kilograms of CO2 emissions, the reuse rate of two organic cotton shopping bags drops to 149, or 74.5 for one. This number stands next to the big and scary number in every table.
Finally, and most importantly, garbage does not fall under the environmental impact category . The authors felt that the environmental impact of the LDPE bag filler was negligible, so they did not include it. In all fairness, this may be true for Denmark, where the study was conducted, but for humanity as a whole, disposable plastic filler is not a minor issue.
Plastic bags are bad
Using LDPE bags as a standard is smart because it highlights their biggest drawback: they are extremely cheap to make. According to a Columbia University Climate School blog post published in April 2020, here ‘s what the manufacturing process looks like:
The energy contained in plastic bags originally comes from the extraction of the raw materials needed to produce them – natural gas and oil – which require a lot of energy to extract. Then the raw material must be refined, which requires even more energy. In a processing plant, raw materials are processed and polymerized to create building blocks from plastic. These tiny polyethylene resin pellets can be mixed with recycled polyethylene chips. They are then transported by truck, train or ship to a facility, where an extruder forms a thin film of the plastic at high temperatures. The film is flattened, then cut into pieces. It is then sent to manufacturers to be packaged in bags. The plastic bags are then packed and shipped to suppliers around the world. While polyethylene can be recycled and used to make new plastic bags, most plastic bags are only used once or twice before they are incinerated or dumped in landfills. The Wall Street Journal estimates that 100 billion plastic bags are used and discarded by Americans every year; and the EPA found that less than five percent is recyclable.
Recycling figures vary; In its unified approach to reducing single-use plastics, the United Nations cites a 2017 study that found about 9% of plastic is recycled, 12% is incinerated, and a whopping 79% ends up in landfills. But whether the recycling is 5% or 9%, the overall picture is bad . It’s too bad that turning fossil fuels into billions of pieces of trash is less resource intensive from the start than making cotton or composite bags that can be reused indefinitely. To make matters worse, plastic production is expected to double over the next 20 years, even as more people already know how bad things are.
What can you do to help?
Please don’t give up or throw away reusable bags – they are much better than disposable plastic or even paper bags. Take them with you to the store every time. You can buy more bags if there are not enough of them, but you know what is even better than buying new ones? Getting them is free. Extra bags can be found everywhere these days: free shots, Don’t Buy Groups, the Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, and your own closet. Taking a few bags off someone’s hands gives them a second life and keeps them out of the landfill.
Speaking of landfills, worn-out bags made from natural materials will eventually break if they end up there. But it is much better to find a textile recycling service in your area. They are not very common, so you may have to leave your donations at a fabric store. It’s still better than throwing them in the trash can.
Finally, remember to use your brain whenever you read media reports about fossil fuel industries. Powerful corporations around the world make good money from uncontrolled extraction and consumption of fossil fuels, and that’s the only reason we’re in this fucking mess. Reducing individual dependence on fossil fuels is a good thing, and oil and gas companies know it. To be honest, they are in some way scared – if consumers stop using their products, their precious profits will stop rising to the right. Don’t let them convince you that this is not the case.