Almost everyday I see a new commercials saying “No more plastic, we switched to paper [straws/bags/whatever]!” I understand that it’s good to not use plastic, but won’t this contribute to cutting down more trees and hurt our environment as well?
In: Earth Science
Trees today are farmed, the same way you woukd grow corn or wheat (although it takes trees more time to grow). Calculating the actual environmental impact of plastic vs paper products is kind of complicated when you include natural resources, energy use, and recycling. Paper straws break down in weeks while plastic takes years, which is why places switch.
The reason plastic bags became a thing in the first place was due to deforestation in part. As is commonly said, if you do not learn from the past you are doomed to repeat it. Yes procedures and methods have improved, but I personally don’t believe switching back to paper bags is a good thing.
It may, but there are two main reasons that paper is better for the environment. The first is that paper waste does not have negative environmental effects. If you take a paper towel and put it in a landfill it will break down and biodegrade, and if an animal eats it it won’t really be hurt. However plastics do not biodegrade, it’s estimated that a plastic bottle would take 450 years to break down. In addition if an animal were to consume it they could be seriously hurt.
The other is that paper products can be recycled easily, while plastic cannot. You can basically take paper and turn it into other paper. In fact the paper bags you get at a grocery store or McDonald’s are usually at least partially made from recycled paper.
Now this is when most people think “wait, but you can recycle plastic.” However it turns out that is not really true. National Public Radio (NPR) and PBS Frontline did an investigation, released last year, that revealed that the idea that plastic would/could be recycled was a [lie](https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled). Plastic is made from petrochemicals, essentially from oil. So oil and gas companies lied and told people that the majority of plastic could and would be recycled to get people to buy more plastic, so they could make more money, despite this not being true. Most of the plastic you “recycle” is just buried underground.
In addition most paper companies employ forestry experts, and those that use wood from natural forests, at least in the USA, are not going to be clear cutting. So you can get paper in a very sustainable way. There’s also the possibility of paper from non-tree sources, like hemp, which can be grown and harvested with minimal environmental impact.
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