Paper or Plastic?

I prefer to carry a sack with me to the supermarket. I know, easy for me to say I live alone.

A reusable sack made from canvas, recycled fibers, or other sturdy material is better, from an environmental standpoint, than either. Paper bags will at least biodegrade, but why waste the trees? Plastic bags will likely wind up in the Pacific Trash Vortex after killing a few sea turtles that eat them because they think they're jellyfish.

Even if you're not some kind of tree-hugging pinko commie, it just makes sense to reuse as many resources as possible rather than create more crap that's just going to clog up landfills and oceans for ages past our expiration dates.

I work in a grocery store, and i have bagged a lot of each, from a baggers point of view, i would go with plastic, paper bags can leave scratches up your arms, and they are slower to bag if you have a large order

Plastic, because it's cheaper to produce, is the overwhelming choice of grocery stores across the nation. It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag. 2,000 plastic bags weigh 30 pounds, 2,000 paper bags weigh 280 pounds. The latter takes up a lot more landfill space. Paper bags generate 70 percent more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18538484/

I bring my own reusable bags to the store. I don't like being wasteful, and BOTH options are wasteful!

I like paper better because it is recyclable in more than one way. You can reuse them yourself or you can recycle them and they get reused. Paper is going to become the new plastic standard.

I profer plastic, but slowly changeing to cloth bags, as they last much longer then the paper or plastic.

even though plastic bags can be recycled, they usually only get recycled into a low grade plastic, that then cant be recycled and goes to landfill. and the fact that plastic never breaks down into anything else, it just turns into smaller peices is kinda offputting now.

paperbags i tend to use less of as there harder to hold stuff in if you have loads, not really that good for reusing more then a few times.

would have stuck with plastic if the recycling systems were more efficient or used plastics that could be reused over and over without loosing structural integrity.

Paper and plastic are two different things. Paper is better out on the street than plastic, but plastic is more reusable and robust, particularly in the rain.

I prefer no packaging. I won't buy anything that has too much packaging. In fact, most of my stuff is in cans or bottles. If I need a bag to carry things, I'll usually use something calico, because it lasts even longer than plastic :)

The use of paper bags is NOT ecologically friendly. As you may know paper comes from trees. The removal of trees is more destructive. But in a way of decomposition it makes it more environmentally friendly because it doesn't take nearly as long as plastic. Right now they are currently making plastic bags more stronger and easier to recycle. Think about it this way, would you rather have plastic lying around and lots of trees, or would you rather have no trees and no plastic lying around. Plastic bags are better in my opinion. I'm not a tree hugger by the way.

Plastic, because it's easier to carry. I can carry six well-organized plastic bags per hand, or ONE well-organized paper bag per hand. Paper means more trips.