If green activists truly worried about atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide, they would bring back plastic shopping bags tomorrow. But they wouldn’t – the whipped up plastic scare has been too useful a tool to batter people into accepting the relentless drive to embrace inferior products and technologies. The acceptance of reduced lifestyle choices, and the unlimited chance for middle class activists to virtue signal, is part of the all-important collectivisation under the planned Net Zero project. But now a recent science paper has revealed that in 15 out of 16 applications of plastic covering 90% of global volume, the alternatives actually produced more greenhouse gases.
And not just more, but significantly more. Over their lifetime cycle, paper bag substitutes produce at least four times more GHG emissions than their plastic counterparts. Paper bags are noted to weigh significantly more than plastic carriers leading to higher GHG emissions for production and transportation.
Talk about an inconvenient conclusion. The scientists found that in the 15 applications covering the five key sectors of packaging, building and construction, automobiles, textiles and consumer durable, plastic products released 10% to 90% fewer emissions across the product life cycle. “Furthermore,” the scientists observe, “in some applications, such as food packaging, no suitable alternatives to plastics exist.”
If carbon dioxide is your thing, and, of course, it is the crucial part of the reason for pursuing insane Net Zero policies, plastic needs to make a big comeback. But of course it will not. Despite revolutionising modern industrial life, it has the misfortune to be a hydrocarbon. Most plastics are a by-product from natural oil and gas production. Thus plastic bad, anything else good. The same blinkered thinking justifies the mass slaughter of any flying animal that is caught up in wind turbines, and the industrialisation of the seas at the expense of aquatic life such as whales and dolphins. In Germany, the hypocritical greens have even been in favour of tearing down parts of the forest setting for the mythical Brothers Grimm fairy tales. And we must not get started on road and bridge chomping EV cars. These are a true ecological disaster zone with a manufacturing requirement to turn over vast tracts of the Earth’s crust, and a small problem of insufficient children available to mine all the required cobalt in the Congo.
Of course, much play is made of the harmful disposal of plastic, but this is largely a waste management problem. There are plenty of ways to prudently recycle or dispose of plastic safely, but they come with some financial cost. If rich countries don’t want their plastic to end up in the oceans, they shouldn’t send it to poor countries who, out of sight, dump it in local rivers on their behalf. The scientists note that better disposal of plastics is an urgent challenge given the “threats to biodiversity and ecosystem health worldwide”.
The key table in the paper is reproduced below. It shows that the GHG emission impact in switching from plastic shopping bags to paper, the next best alternative, is 80% higher. The other 15 switches are also detailed with a note of the mostly much higher GHG impacts. The detailed methods used to calculate the plastic versus non-plastic alternatives are laid out in the paper, which is written by three scientists with expertise in sustainability and chemical and biological engineering from Sheffield and Cambridge Universities.
In arriving at their results, the authors considered many indirect impacts such as fuel saving in lighter cars, lower energy consumption in houses insulated with polyurethane and reduced food spoilage when using plastic packaging instead of butcher paper. Many advantages for the use of plastics were identified. Insulating with polyurethane is better than the alternatives and therefore reduces heating fuel consumption, while plastic tanks cut vehicle weight and thus are more fuel efficient. Meanwhile it is said that there are few alternatives to plastics in food production due to high levels of spoilage when using the alternatives. It might be noted that milkshakes and paper straws give an obvious illustration of the problems in using inferior substitutes.
It is reasonable to ask where all the virtuous green solutions to a politically-claimed ‘climate emergency’ will take us. Almost everything that is being forced through, whether it be demonising plastic to blanketing the land and seas with giant wind turbines, makes little sense. They often cause more ecological harm than good, while the fudged finances backing many of the projects might shame Charles Ponzi. It is becoming obvious that modern industrial society will collapse if the Net Zero tyranny is ever enforced.
Extremist greens from George Monbiot to Sir David Attenborough seem only too aware of the many inconsistencies in making changes to any human activity that has an ‘impact’ on the planet. Best, it seems, to have no impact at all, perhaps not be on the planet in the first place. At the moment their views seem to be shared by many influential elites pressing ahead with any number of decadent plans to drive those less well-off than themselves into abject poverty and depravation.
In 1999, Monbiot said flying across the Atlantic, “is now as unacceptable as child abuse”. The rhetoric has hardly diminished over 25 years with Monbiot recently ramping up his doomsday prose to call for an end to animal farming. Eating meat, eggs and milk is an “indulgence” the planet cannot afford, he claimed. How this Guardianista weirdo expects humans to survive on what is often a hostile planet is anyone’s guess.
Perhaps there ought to be fewer people on the planet for a start. This seems to be the opinion of the supreme middle class embodiment of green virtue, Sir David Attenborough. Supporting the neo-Malthusian Optimum Population Trust, he said in 2009 that he hadn’t seen a problem that “wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people”. In 2013, he was reported to have observed that sending food to famine-ridden countries is “barmy”. Using the example of Ethiopia, he said the famine there was caused by “too many people for too little piece of land”.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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When it comes to the green fascists it is $cientism not real science. There are bio-degradable options for plastic bag manufacture as well to solve the real issue with plastics.
Plant food has no connection with weather or climate, given that Gaia emits 95% and Co2 falls out of climactic convection processes.
The real objective, as given in the article and constantly refrained by the fascist twit Attenborough and his cult, is that fewer humans are necessary. The Greentards want to slaughter billions. They need to lead by example.
All the Greentards and Ronatards should pick a day, hold hands and commit suicide to save Gaia (the cult memberships largely overlap). I will pop corks and celebrate their demise.
I figure about half the population would be thus reduced and happily, the general IQ would be instantly trebled.
I always assume a single use carrier bag will split on me so I use something more heavy duty and don’t care about the extra carbon.
Carbon is not the issue.
Ofcourse the plastic thingy was not so much about CO2, it was more about plastic all over the place, up motorway verges, in streets, in oceans etc. But I have always said that plastic is a fantastic product, and you know what? Plastic doesn’t chuck itself on the street or in the ocean. It is people that do that. It isn’t the plastic we should be penalising, it is the people who throw it on the ground.
What I meant to add was that if people did not chuck all their plastic all over the place instead of disposing of it properly, we could all return to using plastic carrier bags and save the carbon emissions that government seem so concerned about.
Come on varmint, you know carbon emissions are irrelevant.
That was a bit Cheeky Miss. ——–Ofcourse I do. It isn’t me that is concerned with carbon emissions, it is the silly government
I had a mate that would throw rubbish out of his vehicle, he would ask if anything is behind and just chuck it out. I never complained out of politeness but despised it never the less.
“… it was more about plastic all over the place, up motorway verges, in streets, in oceans etc…”
Because local authorities are spending the money on pensions for employees, equality, climate change compliance and free full colour magazines every month singing their praises, instead of doing their job keeping the place clean and tidy… and mending potholes.
Plastic in Oceans – 80% comes from the fishing industry (lost crab/lobster pots, nets, lines, containers, and the rest from rivers in Africa and Asia where Countries are too poor to have proper garbage collection and disposal.
Yes I know what you are saying, but poor people in poor countries don’t chuck coke bottles and plastic cups and bags all over streets in this country.
Isn’t it about time that the alarmists ,whether it’s the IPCC or an individual such as Al Gore,should be brought to account?
As far as I’m concerned they are committing crimes against humanity,you only have to see the effect they’re having on the younger generations mental health.
It’s unforgivable.
As always with Chris’s articles it is important to read the reference. In this case note that the study did not look at reusable, compostable or biodegradable alternatives to plastic shopping bags. I don’t know about others but I almost always use reusable shopping bags.
Good point but I suppose he is comparing the non-reusable types for people who don’t use their own bags, although I’ve never seen a supermarket offer a paper bag anyway, it’s usually the clothes shops that do that.
In France a lot of the supermarkets sell the paper bags. If I need one, I buy one, it usually tears after one use, but no bother, I usually recycle it that day by using it to start the fire in the grate.
Same with all the junk mail we get. Very useful stuff.
I’m doing plant life a world of good. Releasing all that locked up carbon dioxide into the air where it can better help plants grow.
I lived in France 2002 to 2022 – never saw a supermarket with paper bags, never mind selling them.
Holland & Barrett do paper bags.
Compostable, biodegradable (same thing by the way) alternatives is what the article is about – they dissociate into their constituent molecules including so-called greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane.
From the paper (my emphasis):
We focus on plastic and paper grocery bags, excluding reusable grocery bags due to the wide array of volumes and materials used and a lack of reliable data about reuse, which can have a critical impact on the life cycle of these alternatives. We also exclude compostable and biodegradable alternatives; although these alternatives hold promise for reducing GHG emissions,
“in some applications, such as food packaging, no suitable alternatives to plastics exist”
How true! I opened a box of Quality Street yesterday. A Christmas present, but well in date (Oct 24). New paper wrappers are useless – all wrappers have mould on them so fit for the bin. How environmentally friendly is that?
Eat them faster next time!
We’ve been using the same set of aldi and supervalue bags for years now, they are plastic based but much stronger and more durable than paper ever would be and of cause a much longer life cycle!
When you have a moment, take some swabs of the interior of the bags and take them to a friendly microbiology lab and be astonished what bugs they will grow from the samples.
Me too. I have two strong bags in my boot I take to the supermarket. Those Aldi bags are strong.
Interesting – I saw something claiming this the other day and assumed it might be inaccurate (it was an online shopping service explaining why it still used plastic bags). I’m not into the Net Zero insanity but rather more traditional “conservationism” I suppose, looking after habitats and reducing waste etc, and it’s hard to believe that plastic things might be better (in some ways at least) than paper.
If govt was really concerned they would make it easier to recycle flexible plastics – at the moment you have to rely on those supermarket receptacle things which are always bursting at the seams and besides have an entry slot about 4 inches by 1 inch so that you can’t collect a bunch up over a few weeks and then shove it all in at once. My desire to recycle is not strong enough to take my plastics item by item down to the shops every day I’m afraid!
In France you now put all non glass recylables including plastic wrappers in the same recycling bin and they sort them out at the recycling centre. The emphasis is if in doubt recycle and they’ll sort out any non-recyclables. Makes sense.
Same experience in Pyrenees Orientales. Where are you?
I bought a garden incinerator the other day. handy for excess cardboard because they have reduced the Recycling Centre to three days per week so when I went there was a queue a mile long. A fantastic simple thing. A metal bin with a funnel on the top with vent holes all round to help the fire burn.
Solving non-existent problems is absurd.
Ergo, absurd outcomes.
Has anyone actually got a “bag-for-life” that is more than a year old? Also, I notice that some stuff I put in store in “biodegradable” bags some thirty years ago and forgot about are now surrounded by flakes and dust that clearly used to constitute the bags. What was wrong with those? The whole initiative seems to me to be a scam, based on a check-out tax thousands of times the cost of the actual item, viz, the bag, and tolerated only because the sheeple believe they are Saving The Planet or feel the need to virtue signal.
There are always reasons why Mankind moves from using A to B, and seldom because A is no longer available, but because B offers benefits A doesn’t. (Supposedly a move to plastic away from paper and cardboard was to save the trees – now the trees have been replaced by saving marine life. Whale fishing was banned to save whales – now gales are being slaughtered by off-shore wind turbines.)
Plastic does not biodegrade therefore all elements within it are ‘captured’ and fixed in the ground. That means nothing toxic, flammable, corrosive, liquid to harm or pollute anything or to react with other elements.
Environmentalism is a religion of the ignorant, maniacs and psychopaths.
“In 1999, Monbiot said flying across the Atlantic, “is now as unacceptable as child abuse”. “
But child abuse is now acceptable, in fact a requirement of the Transgenderism Cult and its acolytes.
Greenhouse gasses don’t matter, having plastic in fish does matter!
Excellent find by Chris Morrison, and how embarrassing for Saint Greta!
This was a powerful gem:
“…and a small problem of insufficient children available to mine all the required cobalt in the Congo.”
The plastic over paper for shopping bags isn’t new. Plastic is multi use, light, more flexible, longer lasting etc, and the production methods more efficient,
The most efficient way to dispose of plastic waste is to burn it to generate electricity, being oil based it’s energy rich and an excellent fuel, far better than burying it or sending it abroad.