I think using a cotton bag 173 times to beat plastic bags and a mug 1,000 times to beat disposable cups sounds completely reasonable.
I have been using the same mug for 50 years.
Just Bury Your Trash
61–70 of 176 posts
Re: Just Bury Your Trash
#62The authors think reusing a cotton bag for 173 times is difficult - that's all we need to say about this article. When recommendation for landfilling comes from this kind of sources, I think we can safely assume we are doing absolutely great with our demands to reuse, repair and recycle!
I think it's beyond many people. A typical pattern is that you forget your bag at home and end up buying another one. After this happens a few times you now have an excess of reusable bags such that you will never recoup the "173 times" on all of them.
Re: Just Bury Your Trash
#63Meanwhile, New York exports its trash to the mid west and microplastics are found on the top of Mount Everest.
Canada also ships trash to the US.
Re: Just Bury Your Trash
#64I don't remember energy use being the problem with plastic bags? It was plastic bags being absolutely everywhere in the environment. Streets, parks, trees. Wrapped around anything sticking out of the ground. On your face on a windy day. Pollution is the problem with plastic. Probably health, too, now that microplastics are being recognized as an issue.
But the pollution problem from plastic bags is solved equally well if we bury them or recycle them. Provided your municipality doesn't just dump trash in the nearest river which is an issue in some parts of the world. Since we can't get 100% compliance in rich countries and poor countries can't afford landfills that's a good reason to not use plastic. But it's not a good reason to have plastic recycling programs.
That doesn't solve the problem of people littering. Obviously if trash gets into the trash can it ends up at the landfill.
Re: Just Bury Your Trash
#65Just burn your trash https://www.energimyndigheten.se/en/news/2025/from-waste-to-... My understanding is that biological decomposition of waste creates methane which is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2.
The thing with methane is that it has a lifespan of something like 10 years in the atmosphere before it breaks down to CO2 + water, while CO2 persists for centuries. I suspect that burning would release more net CO2 than emitting the methane and having it eventually break down to CO2. [1] https://science.nasa.gov/earth/explore/earth-indicators/meth... > A molecule of methane traps more heat than a molecule of CO2, bu…
I you emit the methane, you have one molecule of CH₄ for 10 years, then one molecule of CO₂ for x years.
If you burn the methane, you have one molecule of CO₂ for x years.
Burning seems strictly better.
(If you use the heat of the burning to offset other emissions, it gets even better)
Re: Just Bury Your Trash
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember a debate in Texas politics a few years ago because livestock were dying from consumption of littered plastic bags. The state government response was to ban the ban of plastic bags.
CA did the wrong thing for like 12 years. We just finally went back to paper bags for everything. If it ends up on a road, it won't kill animals, it will eventually break apart and turn into particulates. It's what we did before plastic bags rained from the sky into all grocery stores. And the best part: if you have permanent bags you can still use them.
There's [very] biodegradable plastics as well. I found out my local store swapped to them in a pretty amusing way. I'd collect plastic bags to use as trash bags and the like. One day I went to grab some from under my counter there was this mess of orange confetti like stuff everywhere from some of the [orange] bags that'd degraded even in just normal storage conditions.
Re: Just Bury Your Trash
#67Such a reductive title/framing. Yes, plastic recycling doesn't work very well. But that doesn't mean that getting rid of trash is simple/there aren't opportunities to reduce waste. Metal recycling, compost, glass bottle reuse, and proper management of landfills are all super important! Also: > In total, Britain’s Environment Agency calculated that a conventional cotton bag needed to be reused 173 times to beat plasti…
In New York City where disposable bag bans occurred I’m quite certain the average “reusable” bag gets used a single-digit number of times. Grocery stores charge 25c for a “reusable” bag in the case that you forgot to bring your own, and every household has a bag full of bags that never get used. Now they’ve re-allowed disposable paper bags, which seems sensible to me.
Re: Just Bury Your Trash
#68I don't remember energy use being the problem with plastic bags? It was plastic bags being absolutely everywhere in the environment. Streets, parks, trees. Wrapped around anything sticking out of the ground. On your face on a windy day. Pollution is the problem with plastic. Probably health, too, now that microplastics are being recognized as an issue.
My state did away with bags a few years ago, and you now never see bags blowing around or stuck on trees. It also seems everyone stopped complaining about it once we got over the hump of "remember to bring your bags".
So we are just left with a small group of old timers, who would probably bring back metal (pull) tab cans if they could, complaining about it. Ironically its the same group of people who blocked windmills because they are "unsightly".
Re: Just Bury Your Trash
#69The argument that is pro-polyethylene plastic bags over cotton completely ignores the source: Renewable plants that are grown and harvested, vs. finite fossil fuels extracted from the Earth and refined. > Instead of a simple blowing and sealing process, the cotton must be made into yarn, woven into fabric, prepared, dried, sized, dyed, and finished, which takes around 1,725 megajoules, around 3,050 times as much ener…
> That conveniently ignores the drilling, extracting, transporting, refining, and transporting again to make "polyethylene resin". It also ignores the energy requirements to grow the cotton. This isn't the gotcha you think it is.
The energy requirements for growing cotton being largely the sun, and a resource which makes up most of the universe (yes, I know water is several steps from hydrogen). ((And the tangentials like the fertilizers, dieslel etc.))
Compared to the energy requirements of petroleum based products: Incredible density and pressure acting on sufficient organic matter(thousands of times greater than growing cotton), on millenium time scales, then requiring several incredibly expensive and commoditization refining/distribution practices, and the end product is then ceremoniously burned off as poison or discarded into the aether.
It is 100 percent the "gotcha OP thought it is". However I do see/realize the fallacy you're pointing out in that the lesser of two evils is still evil.
Re: Just Bury Your Trash
#70Just let me buy things without forcing me to buy so much trash too. Every grocery store item is over-packaged.