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by graemep 873 days ago
I wonder what the environmental impact of paper bags is? The paper has to come from somewhere.
1 comments

Paper is literally renewable and also easily recycled
Sure, the disposal side of the story is probably better, but as I understand they require more energy to produce than plastic bags (at least the old thin ones), and anecdotally they get reused way less, partly due to frequent tears, but also ironically because people instinctively shove them straight in the recycling when they get home
The renewable bit is not straightforward because it means greater land use to produce. Similar problem to biofuels.