Paper or Plastic?

Paper or Plastic? That is the age old question of grocery shoppers everywhere. So which do you choose? You know what really bugs me about this question? When I go to the grocery store & they ask me if I want paper or plastic, if I say paper, they automatically bag the paper bag IN a plastic bag. Uh, what? If I wanted plastic I’d say plastic. I don’t get it. Years ago this question came about because people were concerned about plastic bags. So there was a drive back to paper bags. But nowadays, it’s like they ask it out of convenience instead of environmental concern. I personally can’t stand those grocery store plastic bags. We get them everywhere. The drugstore, Target, the grocery store. I have a little caddy in my house that stores them & I do reuse them when I can, but they are so unbelievably frail that it’s hard to reuse them sometimes. And, reusing them usually is for trash bags or doggie poo bags, so they end up in the landfill anyway. I do try to get paper bags at the grocery store because we use them to recycle our newspapers. So it’s always helpful to have some on hand. Plus, I figure we get enough plastic bags from the other stores that we never need any plastic bags.

Of course the “green” answer to paper or plastic would be, “neither.” Reusable bags are always better. Lately I see canvas or other reusable bags popping up everywhere. Almost every grocery store has them, I’ve seen them at CVS and Target, too. I purchased a few at Wegman’s a few months ago:

You know what my biggest problem with these bags is, though? I always forget them. I’m trying really hard now to organize my shopping trips better – clip coupons, read the sales flyers and make sure I’ve got everything in order before I shop, because if I don’t, I either a)forget the bags or b)shop on a whim and end up spending more money. So by planning and making sure I remember my bags, it’s actually saving me money.

What if you don’t have reusable bags? Which IS better – paper OR plastic? You’d think paper, right? Well, not necessarily. Paper makes a pretty big environmental (or ecological?) footprint. The amount of trees it takes to create the bags is almost unfathomable. This source says a 15-year old tree makes 700 bags. I have no idea how reliable that is, but here, MSNBC says to make all the paper bags we use each year, it takes 14 million trees. Wow, that’s a lot of trees. Add the actual amount of trees being used to the amount of fuel needed to run the plants to produce the bags, chemicals, etc. and you’re talking some major air pollution. (A whopping 70% more than plastic, according to MSNBC.) OTHO, plastic is not much better. Again, MSNBC says it takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce the plastic bags we use each year. And they amount to 4 times the amount of solid waste as paper. And the plastic never decomposes in a landfill. Biodegradable plastic bags would be nice, but I just checked my stash of plastic bags and not one of them says it’s biodegradable.

The whole thought of solid waste to me is just daunting. The amount of packaging used in everything anymore is sickening to me. I hate it when we get something new & I see all this plastic and cardboard, packing peanuts, plastic ties, large boxes used to shop a small battery…it just makes me so angry that things have to be that packaged. And that’s not even considering food packaging. I already admitted yesterday that I run a disposable kitchen, using rolls and rolls of paper towels, individual servings of crackers and cookies…gosh, I’m just adding to the mounds of trash out there, aren’t I? It’s depressing to think about. Before my last job as an environmental specialist, I worked as a waste disposal coordinator for both hazardous and non-hazardous waste in industry, so I saw the amounts of waste generated each year by industries and it’s amazing to me how much of the general plant trash is packaging waste.

Of course packaging is probably a topic for another blog post completely, as you can see I’ve rambled on about it enough already.

So that I don’t end this blog entry on a really depressing note, and since we’re talking about the grocery store, I wanted to share with you an amazing product find I’ve recently discovered. This is completely NOT environmentally-related, but I love this stuff so much, I had to share. For some reason, I can’t find this in every grocery store, but I did find it at one of the several in our area:

I simply love this stuff I am a sucker for sour things. I love a good, tart lemonade. I LOVE Rita’s tart water ices (green apple, lemon, their old lime & even their new Key Lime). I had this stuff at my brother’s house a few months ago & just had to find it here. If you like the tart stuff, you’ll love this.

Oh, yeah, and another layout share. This is another one from our Pocono trip this summer and another one of my DS, Ty:

I used a template by Jen Caputo, but everything else is by me. The red ribbon wrap, bow and crown are from Cosmic Bowl at SBE. The little flower in the bottom corner is from He Loves Me at SBE and everything else is from my new kit, Green: The New Black, coming to SBE on Sunday!

That’s it for today! Happy Scrapping!

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