Single-use plastic bag or reusable bag?

Each year, an estimated 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That’s over one million per minute.

On average we only recycle one plastic bag in every 200 we use.

A person uses a plastic carrier bag on average for only 12 minutes. However it takes hundreds of years to decompose!

So what about reusable bags?

It all comes down to how many times you use them. The more you reuse them, the more you reduce their impact.

Reusable bags can have a bigger footprint during production (especially cotton bags), but this is compensated if reused many times.

The minimum number of times each bag must be reused in order to be more environmentally friendly than a single use plastic bag varies:

Cotton tote bag: 173 times
Fold up reusable bag (non-woven polypropylene): 14 times
Recycled plastic bag: 2 times or less

Conclusion: whatever type of bag you have, don’t lose it, reuse it! Easy! 😉

Source: Tern Goods, Environmental Protection Agency