I’m going to attempt to dispel some of the myth about trees and paper bags. In todays economy paper comes from renewable resources aka trees. I live in an area with numerous tree plantations, these trees are harvested and sold to local pulp mills where the are processed into pulp and shipped to paper manufacturers here in the US and in other countries. Trees are replanted after harvest and harvests are timed. The industry has massively shifted in the past 30 years when most of our pulp went to low grade newsprint. With the decline in demand paper manufacturers have expanded their markets. Technology has also advanced when it comes to recycling all types of paper and paper bags. Most paper bags produced in the US are made from some percentage of recycled paper.The newer paper recycling processes have a far lower impact on our resources, take less energy and water to produce and lower emissions.
When paper is sent to the landfill it decomposes. Plastic bags do not decompose, they merely breakdown to smaller pieces of plastic. Most of the plastic bags that we make here in the US need light and air to breakdown, landfills don’t provide the light and air to quickly break them down into smaller pieces of plastic. Plastic never goes away.
If you want to learn more about this subject explore the websites of companies like Georgia Pacific, BPM, International Paper, KapStone, or Rock-Tenn.
Now back to your regularly scheduled programing.