If green activists truly worried about atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide, they would bring back plastic shopping bags tomorrow. But they wouldn’t – the whipped up plastic scare has been too useful a tool to batter people into accepting the relentless drive to embrace inferior products and technologies. The acceptance of reduced lifestyle choices, and the unlimited chance for middle class activists to virtue signal, is part of the all-important collectivisation under the planned Net Zero project. But now a recent science paper has revealed that in 15 out of 16 applications of plastic covering 90% of global volume, the alternatives actually produced more greenhouse gases.
And not just more, but significantly more. Over their lifetime cycle, paper bag substitutes produce at least four times more GHG emissions than their plastic counterparts. Paper bags are noted to weigh significantly more than plastic carriers leading to higher GHG emissions for production and transportation.
Talk about an inconvenient conclusion. The scientists found that in the 15 applications covering the five key sectors of packaging, building and construction, automobiles, textiles and consumer durable, plastic products released 10% to 90% fewer emissions across the product life cycle. “Furthermore,” the scientists observe, “in some applications, such as food packaging, no suitable alternatives to plastics exist.”
If carbon dioxide is your thing, and, of course, it is the crucial part of the reason for pursuing insane Net Zero policies, plastic needs to make a big comeback. But of course it will not. Despite revolutionising modern industrial life, it has the misfortune to be a hydrocarbon. Most plastics are a by-product from natural oil and gas production. Thus plastic bad, anything else good. The same blinkered thinking justifies the mass slaughter of any flying animal that is caught up in wind turbines, and the industrialisation of the seas at the expense of aquatic life such as whales and dolphins. In Germany, the hypocritical greens have even been in favour of tearing down parts of the forest setting for the mythical Brothers Grimm fairy tales. And we must not get started on road and bridge chomping EV cars. These are a true ecological disaster zone with a manufacturing requirement to turn over vast tracts of the Earth’s crust, and a small problem of insufficient children available to mine all the required cobalt in the Congo.
Of course, much play is made of the harmful disposal of plastic, but this is largely a waste management problem. There are plenty of ways to prudently recycle or dispose of plastic safely, but they come with some financial cost. If rich countries don’t want their plastic to end up in the oceans, they shouldn’t send it to poor countries who, out of sight, dump it in local rivers on their behalf. The scientists note that better disposal of plastics is an urgent challenge given the “threats to biodiversity and ecosystem health worldwide”.
The key table in the paper is reproduced below. It shows that the GHG emission impact in switching from plastic shopping bags to paper, the next best alternative, is 80% higher. The other 15 switches are also detailed with a note of the mostly much higher GHG impacts. The detailed methods used to calculate the plastic versus non-plastic alternatives are laid out in the paper, which is written by three scientists with expertise in sustainability and chemical and biological engineering from Sheffield and Cambridge Universities.
In arriving at their results, the authors considered many indirect impacts such as fuel saving in lighter cars, lower energy consumption in houses insulated with polyurethane and reduced food spoilage when using plastic packaging instead of butcher paper. Many advantages for the use of plastics were identified. Insulating with polyurethane is better than the alternatives and therefore reduces heating fuel consumption, while plastic tanks cut vehicle weight and thus are more fuel efficient. Meanwhile it is said that there are few alternatives to plastics in food production due to high levels of spoilage when using the alternatives. It might be noted that milkshakes and paper straws give an obvious illustration of the problems in using inferior substitutes.
It is reasonable to ask where all the virtuous green solutions to a politically-claimed ‘climate emergency’ will take us. Almost everything that is being forced through, whether it be demonising plastic to blanketing the land and seas with giant wind turbines, makes little sense. They often cause more ecological harm than good, while the fudged finances backing many of the projects might shame Charles Ponzi. It is becoming obvious that modern industrial society will collapse if the Net Zero tyranny is ever enforced.
Extremist greens from George Monbiot to Sir David Attenborough seem only too aware of the many inconsistencies in making changes to any human activity that has an ‘impact’ on the planet. Best, it seems, to have no impact at all, perhaps not be on the planet in the first place. At the moment their views seem to be shared by many influential elites pressing ahead with any number of decadent plans to drive those less well-off than themselves into abject poverty and depravation.
In 1999, Monbiot said flying across the Atlantic, “is now as unacceptable as child abuse”. The rhetoric has hardly diminished over 25 years with Monbiot recently ramping up his doomsday prose to call for an end to animal farming. Eating meat, eggs and milk is an “indulgence” the planet cannot afford, he claimed. How this Guardianista weirdo expects humans to survive on what is often a hostile planet is anyone’s guess.
Perhaps there ought to be fewer people on the planet for a start. This seems to be the opinion of the supreme middle class embodiment of green virtue, Sir David Attenborough. Supporting the neo-Malthusian Optimum Population Trust, he said in 2009 that he hadn’t seen a problem that “wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people”. In 2013, he was reported to have observed that sending food to famine-ridden countries is “barmy”. Using the example of Ethiopia, he said the famine there was caused by “too many people for too little piece of land”.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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does anyone really ever just throw them away?
And that’s the reason they wind up in hedge rows and chain link fences blowing in the wind.
or it could be that they just don’t dissolve as fast as paper? now do tires
EVs eviscerate tires.
and tarmac
That is a waste management problem. I don’t see plastic bags blowing around where I live.
No plastic bags in hedges or fences where I live and no rubbish on the pavements either.
It comes down to how much people care about where they live.
I keep a stash of plastic shopping bags, most of which get re-used or re-purposed.
By the time my well-used bags are ready for the dumpster, each of them has probably out-served probably 6 of those ‘green’ jobbies.
Yes.
A big plus is that, if they don’t have a hole in them, they’re leak proof.
A paper bag is not.
i use them to weather-proof my grid tie micro inverter
Instead of using those out of fashion plastic shopping bags for household rubbish, I now have to buy kitchen bin bags…. plastic, of course
Mine are canvas, by choice.
Agree. In our home, the plastic bags from the grocery get a second life as liners for the trash cans in the house and as doggy “poop bags” when we walk the dog.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve asked a restaurant for a doggy bag…
G’day Redge,
“…a doggy bag…”
The terminology has changed, these days it’s a “To-Go” box.
The size of an average meal served in US restaurants is just abut right for two meals a senior. For those of us raised during WW2, the thought of half a meal being thrown into the trash – “No flamin’ way.”
Unfortunately, yes. People do just throw them away.
Plastic bags caught in hedge rows and chain link fences etc. are really ugly. The bag of those things hanging on a hook in the closet are also less than beautiful. Paper bags are easy to reuse in the grocery store. If they have handles and if you double bag them with some stiff cardboard in the bottom they are easily reused many times. They are the first choice for lugging lots of stuff other than groceries. They are square and stuff fits in them orderly. Plastic bags all the stuff slumps to center and I expect they give off noxious smoke if you burn them, in other words they are crap as kindling for your camp fire. I could go on….
lol. and they’re fantastic when your freezer items sweat
Thanks for that since I just used some plastic bags to keep some burger buns fresh in the freezer.
thanks for answering my inital question. but my freezer items rarely sweat in the freezer. i thought this was about shopping bags.
They sweat in the paper shopping bags and fall out of the bottom.
I don’t recall the city in China, but they require that you surrender all kindling before entering the airport security checkpoint.
How ’bout live chickens? Do you have to surrender those too?
It depends.
If you’re in departures with live chickens and lighting the kindling, it’s a takeaway for you
And because Steve prefers paper bags, he insists YOU cannot use plastic bags.
Why you may ask??
Of course #1, it is because he is a LIBERAL and knows what is best, and YOU have no right to question his opinion.
Facebook will make sure your opinion gets limited views if you prefer plastic bags.
Of course #2, it was the Steve’s of the world that shut down the use of PAPER bags years ago to save the forests. Now they want to make you use PAPER bags. You just can’t make this crap up.
Of course #3, they really want you to use “reusable” shopping bags, you know, the ones shown to spread disease and mold and bacteria etc.
Of course #4, the “reusable” bags MUST be regularly sanitized to be safe, so increasing the use of chemical cleaners and water.
Of course #5, the excess use of water is a “terrible” thing according to the Steve’s of the world.
Of course #6, the production and use of the chemical cleaners will KILL THE EARTH, don’t you know.
Yep, liberals NEVER look any further down the road then their current panic. That would require them to actually THINK. They are too busy feeling to think anything through.
So go ahead Steve, reply to each of these 6 items. Then I am sure we at WUWT can come up with 6 more moronic leftist “panics”. Then 6 more after that, etc.
I was thinking the same thing many a time when I’m washing the garbage to put it in the recycle bin. Besides keeping the squirrels and raccoons away, my city actually requires cleaning of the various containers.
Why can’t they collect all the garbage at once, the most efficient way, and then burn it for energy and process the metals left over?
Why is the Left always cloning Rube Goldberg in its various complicated and poorly designed schemes?
Stop dumping your plastic bags in the hedge rows and fences and then they won’t be ugly!
Reuse your plastic bags and then repurpose them for your smaller garbage bins around the house.
Paper bags rarely even make it to the car without ripping, and for yard waste I’d rather use an open bin with a “yard waste” sticker (though the rose prunings and other branches sticking out are a dead giveaway.
That’s nice if you have a car trunk to put them in. I walk most places and plastic and re-usable bags (or a wheeled shopping cart) are a better for shopping. The trouble with paper, even double bagged, is that the handles don’t stand up to repeated heavy use, paper dissolves if you get caught in the rain, they rip when packed with heavy items…etc. I have, however, found a use for my paper bags – containers for recycling!
In these parts, plastic grocery bags get recycled in special bins at the grocery. Along with some other plastics, get made into plastic ‘lumber’ for outdoor use. In these SOUTH Florida parts, lasts longer than wolmanized pine. Rather than consider paper (our two groceries both offer the option), we switched years ago to permanent cloth bags that can carry more than either plastic or paper and which last for years. Cost about a Buck each, but haven’t had to buy a replacement in recent memory.
You should wash the cloth grocery bags fairly often to deal with cross contamination.
Of what with what?
If you have to ask about that you wouldn’t understand the answer. Get a book on public health. Hotels are required to bleach their sheets. How many private rentals ever bleach their sheets?
Maybe once a year. We have the wrapped meats regularly double bagged (in plastic first) to prevent the occasional meat juice messes we used to encounter. Rest goes in as is. Most is sealed somehow, and loose fruits and veggies always get rinsed before consumption to remove any residual pesticides.
I packed grocery bags in 1962 when I was in high school. Those floppy cloth bags were miserable to pack because they wouldn’t stand up.
Publix now has a bag stand with a hook, and each bag has a sewn lip loop to put over the hook. Problem solved.
I wouldn’t put my bag where other people put their cloth bags. The one’s I’ve seen look like they haven’t been washed ever.
Well. Maybe not. So what. Meats are double bagged, loose produce is post washed, and rest is sealed somehow. So you only use one way flimsy plastic?
Glad I read that bit twice, I was about to ask what womanised pine was
Most plastic isn’t recycled, and that’s not a waste management problem.
Contrary to imaginary damage caused by offshore wind, plastic is really a problem for whales (and all other species).
The sudden increase in dead whales washing up on US east coast wind survey sites is not imaginary.
And the ocean plastic bag damage isn’t whales, it’s leatherback sea turtles that confuse them for their primary jellyfish food. (Our other two sea turtle species hereabouts are loggerheads that eat shellfish and greens that eat sea grasses.)
And at least here in South Florida, a lot of plastic IS recycled into cost effective outdoor ‘lumber’. But I repeat myself.
Up your game if you can. Maybe not possible?
Apart from carpeted areas, the whole surface flooring in my house is made from recycled plastics.
And if you check into it, the carpet, if not of wholly “natural” materials (vegetable in origin) probably has recycled materials in it.
Polyester carpet… derived from .. PLASTIC !! 🙂
minneapolis airport advertises recycling them into excited electrons. instead of using recently disinterred hydrocarbons
You were going great until you said “imaginary damage caused by offshore wind.”
DENIALISM in its ugliest form.
Total lack of care for sea creature… typical far-leftist.
Not recycling plastic is not a problem for whales. I have never seen a whale at the landfills near my home.
the striper fishing off new england has never been so good
and the seals and great whites have returned in bigly numbers
I’ll repeat my previous question:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/04/12/spirit-whales-which-no-one-believes-exist-hold-up-australias-most-expensive-energy-project/#comment-3895781
Why do you hate whales?
You made me think. I wonder how many whales I’ve killed with my plastic bags here in Colorado.
As usual, leftists get everything wrong using just their feelings and no real research, I have seen it many times in many situations. Par for the course!
Four times less?
Not sure, but the plausible cited paper so claims. I know from early consulting career that paper making is very energy intensive. Just take the paper mill, ignoring logging and woodshed transport. Wood is debarked (electricity), then the wood is ‘digested’ in boiling water with chemicals to produce separated wood fibers (heat). Then the resulting wood pulp slurry ‘furnish’ is spread onto a paper machine traveling fine mesh steel screen, After the loose furnish water drains, the wet pulp ‘paper’ is heat steam dried in multiple hot rollers. All requires a bunch of electricity and process heat.
In most pulp mills steam and E are provided by burning the incoming wood bark—not very fuel efficient, but a very cheap local resource.
In the town of West Point on the York river, as in the revolutionary war battle of Yorktown, there is a paper plant that has been there for at least 70 years.
All of the school children in the City of Hampton Virginia did a field trip there at least once during elementary or middle school. You knew you were close (depending on the wind, within 5 miles) when you could smell the boiling cabbage type smell. I was lucky enough to get the trip twice, interesting, and you learned the human ability to adjust to smells.
I no longer live near there but have driven by there a couple of times over the last few years. There is almost NO smell. Of course that is because the leftists have required excess spending to build containment for the harmless but “bad smelling” gasses.
EPA to the rescue of what?? And at what cost?
Unintended consequences — the hallmark of absurd liberal schemes.
The switch away from plastics is more related to real pollution. Particularly in oceans.
So the more important issue for plastics is biodegradability.
Images like the ones here is what concerns most people:
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/16-pictures-which-show-devastating-impact-plastic-animals-oceans-1646649
And like the massive increase in the use of coal for electricity, guess where all this plastic is coming from.
The images are hard to take. But they argue for the responsible handling of trash – plastic and non-plastic. There can be no ban of plastic fishing nets or plastic ropes – without closing the fishing industry. Then there is the issue of trash management in developing countries. If we were serious about ocean pollution then we should start improving trash management in those areas.
It’s not good that people throwaway trash as some do, but I have to question the image of the albatross with that much plastic inside of it.
Do albatrosses have such large stomachs? Do their throats allow them to swallow rigid objects?
I have always thought that picture was set up as there is no room for any organs in the carcass. Makes me doubt the authenticity of all the other pictures.🤷♂️
I’m all for depopulation only if we can start with the virtuous lefties and socialist greenies.
The late Warren T Brookes could have (and did) told you that 40 or so years ago. He was a nationally syndicated columnist with the Detroit News who often wrote about economic and environmental issues. I remember he wrote a column documenting that plastic bags use much less oil/gas than paper bags when you count the energy used to make them. Dr. Dean Edell noted it on his nationally syndicated radio talk show.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_T._Brookes
This was all known and discussed years ago but plastic banning continues apace. People keep making the mistake of believing that logic is somehow relevant to the decision to vilify everything related to petrochemicals. We also know that 95% of plastic garbage in the world’s environment comes from nations without basic sanitation infrastructure. Ih Canada most of the street garbage comes from people who migrated from those.nations.
Microplastic ocean pollution may cause more warming than CO2.
Western societies banning plastic bags, and straws, makes a huge difference in the environment. (sarc)
Of course we the problems would be easier to solve with fewer people. Simple logic.
The question is, who gets to decide? How many fewer? How to dispose of/process the bodies?
The ONLY issue I have with plastics is keeping them from escaping into the environment, aka pollution.
The other question is, how effective, how efficiently are we recycling the plastics.
One could add blacktop to that question, too.
Without plastic grocery bags, what would you use to pick up dog poop?
You have to buy little plastic bags of course.
Lied to again by the Green wackies. What a surprise.
I have broken several items because paper bags rip and tear. And they become so distorted you can’t refold them into a space saving shape and they need to be thrown out immediately, almost consuming a whole plastic trash bag. A true one time use bag, Brianiacs!
Paper bags were always a silly idea. I’ve seen old ladies in the rain struggling to get on the bus and prevent the bags from splitting and spilling their groceries all over the floor. Now that stores charge extra for bags I always have a few sturdy re-usable bags in my pocket or shopping cart. Problem solved.
Here in Calgary, the Co-op teamed with a company to produce compostable shopping bags which are amazingly strong and work great and when fed into the city compost system with its high temperature and high intensity UV lights compost away.
The response of the federal govt is they didn’t care, its still a plastic bag and must go,
Just another example of government bureaucracy getting everything wrong.
Because they must
Since MD banned plastic shopping bags, things are much better. I use about one paper bag in place of 4 plastic bags. The paper bags are 100% easier to use than the plastic bags. The self-checkout lines are now free of plastic bag litter and the entire self-check out experience is better. And, since the paper bags cost 10 cents, I am very frugal in how many bags I use. On my best days, I remember to bring my own heavy duty bags and don’t spend a cent for the store bags.
Viva the plastic bag ban!!!!
Seriously, the plastic bags are ridiculous.
I don’t care about plastic or paper for grocery’s. When I need a grocery-sized paper bag for tossing away my shredded documents, I ask for paper bags at the store, if I need some for dog droppings I ask for plastic. Plastic is useful for other disposal items too.