[aldebran]

Some people do.

1. Reduce plastic consumption as much as you can. 2. Use reusable bags 3. Choose packaging that contains less plastic. This is truly horrible in the US. Apple sauce containers for kids have so much unnecessary plastic. I mean the ones with the fancy caps that are big only to appeal to kids.

And to reduce your carbon footprint further - controversial point incoming - reduce or stop eating meat.

“But, aren’t you using a smartphone? Do you not buy X? Do you not use X? Do you drive? Do you travel? … All your points are therefore invalid“

When I’m hungry and someone offers a slice of pizza I don’t say no if I can’t have the entire pie. I take the slice. Start with a step today then take another one tomorrow.

Eventually there will be enough of us that we opt to tax companies at the source for using plastics unnecessarily or having a ridiculous carbon footprint. And May be we can have effective carbon capture technologies and better ways to deal with plastic.

[simondotau]

Fascinatingly, single use plastic bags are so impossibly thin that you'd have to reuse a reusable bag more times than they're likely to last. I have not seen any data, but I'm willing to bet that our consumption of plastic has increased, with any reduction in single use plastic bags more than offset by an increase in "reusable" bags.

If instead of normalising the use of reusable bags, we normalised soft plastics (LDPE) recycling, the planet would probably be in a better condition. A one cent tax per bag would probably be sufficient to pay for it.

(And don't get me started about cotton. If you only focus on climate change, cotton isn't too bad. But if you zoom out to look at environmental impact, petroleum doesn't hold a candle to cotton for the devastation of natural habitat, water use, energy use, etc etc etc. One t-shirt or tote bag is likely more environmental impact than all of the soft plastics used by one person in a year.)

[V1ndaar]

It's unfortunate you're being downvoted. Your intuition is spot on. Here's [0] a report from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency about life cycle analysis of different shopping bags. See table 4 on page 18 in the summary. A cotton bag needs to be reused 7,100 times and an organic cotton one even 21,000 times to reach parity in its environmental impact compared to a single use plastic bag that's reused as a trash bag.

There's plenty of other studies. Just search for life cycle analysis of grocery bags or similar on Google Scholar.

[0]: https://backend.orbit.dtu.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/151577434...

[simondotau]

For what it’s worth, I come back to check on my reply after 8 hours to find it has a score of 1. So if there has been any downvotes they have been perfectly balanced out by upvotes.

I’m not a fan on indiscriminate use of petroleum products but I really think people underestimate just how thin a single use bag is. Next time you finish a plastic bottle of milk or juice, weigh the container and see how many single use bags it takes to match that weight.

Single use plastic bags are a problem, but like plastic straws, they’re not even in the top 100 of culprits. People pick on them because they’re easy and because they’re symbolic.

[nitrogen]

The main problem with single-use bags is that they blow away too easily and end up being seen.

[aldebran]

This is a myopic view.

My state recently started charging for bags. Guess what? People carry groceries in their hands when possible. Many bring their own bag plastic reusable bags.

It’s not just the energy required to create them. It’s that they’re virtually indestructible. They litter. They fly away. They break and leak plastic everywhere in the environment leading to microplastic found in blood of wildlife.

And this is just scratching the surface. I know it sounds like an educated view and it’s not entirely wrong but there’s more to it than what appears. Plastic is a problem and the less of it we use the better we and our next generations will be.

[simondotau]

It is myopic to focus on the highly visible component of the greater problem (loose plastic bags in the environment) rather than a holistic view (total environmental cost of shopping conveyance).

[adhesive_wombat]

A little part of me (and the planet, I suppose) dies whenever my wife uses one of those thick plastic reusable bags as a bin bag.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

To that end, does anyone know a good way to deal with dog waste that doesn't involve plastic? I feel like sealing dog waste away in this nigh-indestructible container is a really stupid idea, but I haven't yet thought of a better way of picking the stuff up.

[eppsilon]

There are biodegradable bags [1], but not sure if they are completely plastic-free ("38% vegetable-based").

1. http://amzn.com/dp/B01LXVVH1I