By Randy Tuchtenhagen, Environmental Services

I came across some information about the use of plastic bags, a question I frequently am asked and is still somewhat controversial for some people.

More than a billion single-use plastic bags are given out for free each day. For nearly 30 years, since plastic bags were first introduced at the grocery-store checkout, environmentally conscious customers have been making decisions as to the plastic versus paper bag choice.

Of course we all know the true answer. Neither.

The environmentally conscious bring their own reusable grocery sacks or save old ones from another trip and bring them back to the store for re-use. The American environmentally conscious being about one percent of the population.

Some U.S. stores encourage re-usable bags by offering a small refund to customers who bring their own bags. I have experienced this in our local stores.

Other countries have differing incentives. Ireland, for example, has taken the negative approach and places a tax on plastic bags.

The average American uses 600 to 1,200 grocery bags a year. It costs about one cent to produce a new plastic bag and about three times that much to make a paper bag. Our country destroys about 14 million trees each year in order to produce 10 billion paper bags.

Here are some statements we can make about plastic bags: The production of plastic bags requires petroleum and often natural gas, both non-renewable resources that increase our dependency on foreign suppliers. Many animals, especially marine life, mistake plastic particles for food and when swallowed they choke the animals or block their intestines leading to an agonizing death.

In a landfill, plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade, if they ever do at all. Small pieces of degrading plastic can act like a sponge for toxic chemicals, soaking up a million fold greater concentrations of PCBs and DIDE than the surrounding water and plants. These bits turn into toxic gut bombs for marine animals.

Collection, hauling and disposal of plastic bags create an additional environmental impact at an estimated eight billion pounds into the waste stream every year in the U.S.

Recycling alone requires energy for the collection of old bags, cost of processing and re-distribution. Re-usable bags eliminate all of these issues, are stronger for heavy use (canned goods), and are easily cleaned (sanitized) by placing in the wash on laundry day. Using your own cloth grocery bag over and over still makes you eligible for the discount many stores offer.

We don’t want to completely discount the advantages of using plastic. They make great garbage bags, liners that prevent leaks or craft projects. But reducing the number of them and making environmentally friendly choices through the use of cloth would be a better choice.

There are bins in many local stores for you to recycle your plastic bags. Remember to remove the sales receipt as the paper is contamination for a load of plastic. Most bags are made into plastic lumber.

At a meeting I attended recently, a company near the Twin Cities was looking for a steady source of bags (truck loads). There are markets for them, but limited ones.

How can we obtain cloth bags? I recently noted local grocery stores selling cloth bags in the grocery aisles. There may be people who are gifted in sewing and could make colorful designer bags and even give them as gifts.

It would be pretty simple to use a long piece of cloth and sew up two sides and a handle. Some of the conferences I have attended recently also sold or gave away reusable cloth bags and while on vacation the past couple of years I found the bags on sale in the tourist stores with the name of the state, city or business printed on the side.

Sometimes re-use (cloth bags) is easier than recycling plastic or paper bags.

(Randy Tuchtenhagen is the Freeborn County Solid Waste Officer.)