There are only a few modern rituals that are confirmed spiritual than standing at the cash register, looking into the eyes of the cashier and explaining: “No bag, thank you. I brought mine with me.” It is a moment of the environmental freight – a reusable bag that presses the chest, cotton fibers that are woven with the complacement of 149 unused plastic bags (but it turns out, probably still made). The problem is that as with all good sermons, the gospel of the shopping bag full of contradictions, reservations and a lot of carbon enforces.
The New York Times, which is ever ready to preach the faith of “climate responsibility”, recently published a piece with the title “Which shopping bags should I use?”? It is a fascinating reading, not because it delivers clarity, but because it shows how confused eco-virtue has become. Spoiler alarm: You cannot win. But you can feel like you win, and maybe that's the point.
Let's start with the usual demon in the pews: plastic. Plastic bags, we are told, are the spawning of the fossil fuels and must be banished as such. Her recycling rate is dark 10%, and her life after death often goes to hover the nose of a turtle or to pursue microplasty in confetti -grasses that have been pursuing us for centuries. But here is the turn that not only cited in the article (from the British environmental authority and the Denmark environmental protection authority), these unholy plastic bags actually have the smallest environmental footprint of the property if they are assessed using greenhouse gas emissions.
So how did you become the number one public enemy? Simply. They look bad. They are flimsy, fragile and connected to other people who do not bring their own bags to Joe's.
Then there is paper – renewable, biodegradable and about as robust as wet tissue paper and susceptible to dramatically halfway across the parking lot, just like your oat milk takes a break for it. Sure this is the sacred option? Not quite. According to the same British study, paper bags have to be reused three times in order to meet the global warning obligations of a single plastic bag. What for everyone who ever explodes a moisture paper bag in the rain, optimistically borders on the delusion.
Nevertheless, paper has a better PR. The recycling rate is 43% – but still means that most of the paper bags decompose on land in the methane and carbon dioxide. Methane is one of the top demons in the pantheon of greenhouse gases for those who keep the theological score. That is true: While plastic could only sit there, paper farts through the hereafter.
And then we come to the high priests of environmental youth: the reusable deeds. These cables of the consumer, dressed in cotton dressed, are organized everywhere, from conferences, weddings, political rallies and yoga studios. Everyone whispers: “You are a good person.” But as always, the truth is impractical. The British study came to the conclusion that a cotton bag 131 times must be reused to meet a plastic bag. The Danish study said 149. And that assumes that they ever use them more than once, instead of stopping them in the growing pile of canvas under their sink.
This raises the question: Do we really try to save the planet or just to pronounce for holiness?
Dr. Samantha Macbride from Baruch College offers a hint. She notes that plastic bags “immortalize the fossil fuel industry” and that “the system has to withdraw when we have a future”. Ah, it is there. The problem is not just emissions or landfill. It is symbolism. Plastic is original sin. Paper is purgatory. And Totes – Well, you are your opportunity for redemption, provided you regret and reuse until your shoulder spends.
Even the “conclusion” of the article is a master class in protection. “Experts agree that they reuse [your bag] The key is as often as possible. “After thousands of words we come to a tautology: use what you have unless you don't have many plastic.
It turns out that virtue signaling is a full -time job.
But maybe this is the real story here – not science that is flimsy and contradictory – but performance. Climate consumption does not require any results. It requires gestures. It doesn't matter whether your bag has the CO2 footprint of a coal train as long as you mean it well. It's not about solving problems. It's about demonstrating loyalty.
Because if the numbers are important, we would produce polyethylene bags with low density and set up efficient return-reses programs. But that would be practical, and the practicality on Instagram was not.
In the end we have a strange theological message: the way to the environmental sky is paved with good intentions, reinforced seams and a stable feeling of self -righteousness. And if you cannot save the earth, at least make sure that your bag is trying to try.
Are you looking forward to the next sermon: compostable dog decorative bag divin miracle or metha transpsee?
H/T Marc Morano
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