Paper or Plastic? Or neither?

This is from an article I received from Real Foods today:

It seems like it should be an easy choice, but there's a lot more to each bag than meets the eye.

Paper comes from trees -- lots and lots of trees. The process of clear-cutting results in massive habitat destruction and long-term ecological damage. It takes approximately three tons of wood chips to make one ton of pulp. The pulp is washed and bleached, and both stages require thousands of gallons of clean water. Recycling requires a chemical process in order to bleach and separate the pulp fibers.

Plastic bags are typically made from oil, a non-renewable resource. Plastics are a by-product of the oil-refining process, accounting for about four percent of oil production around the globe. Like paper, plastic can be recycled, but it isn't simple or easy. Recycling involves essentially re-melting the bags and re-casting the plastic.

Did you know that, worldwide, we use an estimated one million plastic bags each minute? Somewhere between 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used and discarded EVERY year. Of those, only 1 percent or so are recycled – at a cost higher than what it would cost to produce a brand new one. The rest ends up in landfills, in our oceans, and as litter strewn across the globe.

Many people don’t realize that plastic bags don’t biodegrade. They photodegrade, slowly breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits, which contaminate soil and waterways, where it enters the food chain - as animals mistake these tiny bits and pieces for food. Additionally, it takes 11 barrels of oil to produce one ton of plastic bags, which means we’ve used up some 11 billion barrels of a non-renewable resource to satisfy our want for convenience.

This plastic pollution causes seabirds, marine mammals, and fish to die. And, it’s not just marine animals that are poisoned by all this plastic. You too are now ingesting plastics every day, and being exposed to a potentially deadly mix of plastic chemicals and additives. What happens to your body when you breathe, eat, drink, and absorb all of this plastic? Dr. Mercola says the results are obesity, declining fertility rates and other reproductive problems, cancer, and more.

Choose reusable canvas or cloth bags! It’s the way to go.

My comments:
Although I know it's better to use cloth, I usually forget to bring mine so what I really need to do is just store them in my car. Just an idea.