simons28•17d agoProlific Poster

Switched from plastic bags to reusable produce bags last year, finally realizing I was the problem

I used to grab a new plastic bag for every apple or orange at the grocery store, thinking it was no big deal until I counted 40 bags from one trip. Six months later, I still wonder if the cotton bags are actually better or just feel better. Anyone else have that moment where you realized your "small" habit was a bigger deal than you thought?

2 comments

2 Comments

oliver217d ago

That's a solid question about the cotton bags. Have you actually washed them yet? I read somewhere that unbleached cotton has a bigger water footprint than making plastic bags if you factor in growing the cotton and washing it regularly. Curious what your math turned up on that.

the_ryan17d ago

oliver2 I actually looked into this pretty deep and came away thinking the cotton bag hate is overblown. A cotton bag needs to be used about 50-100 times to beat plastic, but the plastic bag stats usually ignore that most plastic bags end up in landfills or oceans after one use. The water footprint thing is real, but it mostly depends on where the cotton is grown - rainfed cotton in India or Turkey uses way less water than irrigated cotton in dry areas. And you don't need to wash a tote after every trip, maybe once a month unless it gets dirty, which cuts the water impact way down. The real problem with plastic is that it never breaks down, while cotton will rot in a year if it ends up in a ditch.