[SoftTalker]

Brown paper bags were the standard grocery store bag up until sometime in the 1980s. The transition to plastic was pushed by environmentalists with a "save the trees" message focused on how many trees were used to make the paper bags.

[hliyan]

Can you back that last claim up?

The push was from plastic manufacturers.

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/birth-ban-histor...

[SoftTalker]

Not really. It's just my memory of the times. "Save the trees" was a very big thing for a while, in arguments for avoiding paper and cardboard packaging.

[nickserv]

A lot of so-called environnemental awareness campaigns are the work of trade organizations or multinationals. Often they shift the blame onto the consumer, so for example it's "you need to recycle" instead of "we need to produce less".