Cloth bags are actually way worse for the environment than plastic ones

plastic bags
(Image credit: Fiona Goodall / Getty Images)

Plastic bags may actually have one thing going for them.

Sure, they fill landfills and accumulate into giant plastic islands in the ocean. That's why New York became the second state to ban them altogether last month. But a recent study shows that a similar ban in California actually ended up pushing plastic waste higher — and that the alternatives to plastic may not be so great either, NPR reports.

After California's cities and counties banned plastic bags ahead of a statewide ban in 2016, University of Sydney economist Rebecca Taylor found they did reduce 40 million pounds of plastic waste every year. Yet in the months after the statewide ban began, Taylor's study also found that purchases of small, four-gallon plastic garbage bags — which use more plastic than single-use options — more than doubled. That's likely because people needed something to replace the plastic shopping bags they once reused to pick up dog poop or line small garbage cans around their house, NPR says.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In another blow to the environmentally conscious, NPR also compiled several studies that show paper bags are worse for the planet than plastic. Sure, they can be recycled and reused, but a ton of water, chemicals, and fuel are used to produce them. Even worse, one study from the Danish government found you'd have to use an organic cloth bag 20,000 times for it to be a better environmental choice than plastic. So to be the best tree hugger you can, use a reusable polyester or plastic bag over and over, the Danish study recommends. Read more about the unintended consequences of bag bans at NPR.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.