Plastic bag manufacturers work hard to distort the issue of plastic litter pollution by spinning it as an extension of an age-old paper versus plastic debate. The fact is that the real solution to the problem of disposable bag waste is to stop using disposable bags altogether and instead use reusable bags. Every single serious environmental impact review ever commissioned on bags has shown that reusable bags are, by far, the greenest solution. Consider this:

• Whereas the average reusable bag consumer uses only 4 bags per year, the average disposable bag user consumes over 700 bags a year.
• One reusable bag only requires only a bit more energy to produce than one disposable bag.
• If littered, reusable bags are too heavy to become marine litter pollution.

Why, then, do local ordinances still allow the use of paper bags? Because if consumers still demand access to disposable bags if they forget their reusables, recycled paper bags are much less damaging to the environment than plastic bags. When one takes into account that paper bags hold more groceries than plastic bags, that paper bags can easily be made from 100% recycled content, that paper bags, as an organic material, are naturally CO2 neutral, and that paper bags are universally accepted in curbside recycling, it is clear that they are better from both a resource use, pollution production and solid waste perspective. This has been demonstrated in many competent life cycle analyses.   Additionally, the paper industry has set, and achieved, relatively high industry-wide recycling levels.  Now at 56%, the industry plans to attain 60% by 2012 (keep in mind that some estimates peg plastic bag recycling at as low as 2% nationally). The most profound benefit of paper over plastic, however, is that paper is not a component of litter pollution. Whereas paper bags are not aerodynamic and quickly break down if accidentally littered, from an environmental perspective, plastic bags last forever. Consider this:

• Virtually every bit of plastic ever produced on Earth still exists today.
• Plastic bags kill hundreds of thousands of animals every year.
• In some parts of the Pacific, plastic outweighs plankton by a factor of 46.
• Plastic bags are difficult to recycle and are not made from recycled content.

Unfortunately, plastic manufacturers often confuse the issue for the media by citing old studies and studies commissioned by plastic manufacturers themselves, which don't take into account reusable bags or plastic marine litter pollution. In reality, recent studies commissioned independently find that reusables are by far the best option and that, of the disposables, paper is better than plastic.