Grocery shopping is probably when most people amass the largest number of bags. What do people do with the bags after the groceries are unloaded and put away?
- Reuse
- Recycle
- Compost
- Toss
Reuse
Enter “ways to reuse paper bags” or “ways to reuse plastic bags” into the search engine of your web browser and you will be bombarded with ideas. My non-scientific survey 
indicates that the top 3 reuses are:
- Reuse as a trash can liner
- Reuse to pick up pet waste or line litter boxes
- Reuse as a shopping bag
The waterproof attribute of plastic bags makes them popular for reuses such as keeping things dry in the rain or separating wet bathing suits from dry clothes. Some plastic bags tear easily so good intentions to reuse may not be realized.
Paper bags seem popular for storing other stuff, like newspapers for recycling or even plastic bags. They are also useful for covering textbooks or packages for shipping. If a paper bag gets wet on the bottom, it’s all over, sometimes literally.
Recycle
According to the U.S. EPA, 49.5% of paper bags/sacks and 9.4% of plastic bags/sacks/wraps were recycled in 2009. Grocery shopping bags are included somewhere in those figures. It’s not an “apples to apples” comparison, but it does illustrate that paper bags are recycled over 5 times more than plastic bags.
Recycling can be tricky and is not without environmental issues. Also just because you put something in the recycle bin does not mean it will actually be recycled.
Although paper is recyclable, the process requires a lot of resources and energy (more than plastic). According to the paper industry, more and more “new” paper bags are being made from recycled paper stock.- Plastic bags are recyclable however they can be a challenge for recycling equipment to handle and may clog machinery. Recycled plastic bags cannot be made into more plastic bags and are “down-cycled” into items like textiles and building materials. Although the industry reports prices are increasing, recycling plastic bags is not necessarily profitable. Given the difficulty of recycling and questionable profit picture, some recyclers do not recycle the plastic bags they receive and throw them away.
Compost
- Kraft-type paper bags are compostable. For best results, tear into shreds and moisten before putting them in the compost bin.
- Plastic bags are not compostable. Plastic bags made of bioplastics are compostable but they have not made their way to the grocery checkout stand.
Toss
Trash tossed in landfills requires oxygen and moisture in order to decompose, and even in the best conditions, plastic does not biodegrade. Many U.S. landfills do not have “ideal” conditions for trash to decompose. You’ve probably seen an article or picture of something that goes like this “scientist pulls a newspaper from 1960 out of a landfill and it is still perfectly readable.”
- Paper bags will decompose in nature, more quickly when exposed to moisture.
- Plastic bags do not decompose and eventually break down into smaller and smaller pieces.
- Due to their light weight, plastic bags may fly out of waste receptacles and landfills and cause unintentional litter.
Try This
On any given day, count how many paper and plastic bags you see flying down the road, caught on fences and bushes, blocking gutters, etc.
Related Posts
- Bags – Back to Reusable
- Bags – From the Beginning to Paper
- Bags – Then Came Plastic
- Bags – Paper, Plastic, or Reusable?
- Bags – Paper vs. Plastic: Environmental Impact
- You Can Live Without Single-Use Plastic Bags – Here’s How
Resources
- American Forest and Paper Association
- American Progressive Bag Alliance (APBA)
- PaperRecycles.org
- PlasticBagRecycling.org
- U S. EPA publication “Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States Tables and Figures for 2009 Report”
Thanks for the articles! So…due to how the trash is managed in my area…I still need bags, is it better a recycled paper bag or a compostable bag for throwing the trash? Assuming it will end up in a landfill.
Compostable bags generally will not biodegrade in a landfill so if I was in your position and had to use a bag, I would look for trash bags made from recycled plastic or recycled paper and use as few as possible.
I’ve got many, many paper grocery bags. Should I send them away in the compost bin or the recycle bin? Both methods are accepted by our waste management company. Thanks
It seemed wasteful to me to compost or recycle paper bags so I continued to use them until my stash was gone. If you don’t want to use them, maybe a friend would.