From: jym@mica.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: "Paper Or Plastic?"
Date: 14 Sep 92 22:32:35 GMT
Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: briang@bari.Eng.Sun.COM's message of 8 Sep 92 15:48:29 GMT

>> Which is better for the environment, paper grocery bags
>> or plastic ones?

=x= As others have pointed out, a reusable bag is the best
choice overall.  You can get canvas or string bags, or you
can try reusing paper or plastic ones.  Paper ones can hold
up to more reuse.

=x= Failing reuse, the best long-term choice is paper.

> When the City of Berkeley, CA, was considering forcing fast
> food chains (MacDonalds, et al) to switch from styrofoam to
> paper for packaging, the opponents presented several studies
> that showed that, over their lifecycle from obtaining raw
> materials through non-existence in a recognizable form,
> plastics, including styrofoam, had much less environmental
> impact than did paper and cardboard.

=x= Not quite.  The opponents presented studies which showed
that, if one considers only certain selected parts of he
lifecycles of paper and plastic packaging, you'll find that
paper has slightly more environmental impact.

=x= The studies were done by the Franklin Associates, a lobbying
group for the plastics industry.  They had a few major flaws:

    o Flaw:  Noting that styrofoam manufacture has mostly phased
      out ozone-depleting CFCs, but not taking into account the
      fact that these have been replaced with other, less- (but
      not enough less-) damaging ozone-depleting gases.

    o Flaw:  Conducting a quantitative analysis on waste
      (measuring volume and mass and repercussions of same) but
      not conducting a qualitative analysis on it (evaluating
      how damaging certain compounds are to the environment).

    o Flaw:  Pointing out that in sanitary landfills that paper
      doesn't biodegrade, and comparing this with plastic that
      doesn't biodegrade.  While this is accurate, it's simply
      a half-truth:  Failure to biodegrade is not endemic to the
      materials in paper packaging, but it *is* endemic to the
      materials in plastic packaging.  ("Biodegradable plastics"
      are a sham:  they're degradable, but not biodegradable.)

    o Flaw:  Evaluating paper-manufacturing with a worst-case
      scenario; as if each paper cup is made from virgin forest
      pulp, bleached with chlorine bleach, with byproducts
      dumped into the water.  It is true that most paper mills
      operate in this damaging fashion, but they don't *need*
      to.  Again, it's the matter of what's endemic to the
      materials:  Polystyrene, is always made using styrene,
      benzene, etc., and nobody knows how to make it any other
      way.

    o Flaw:  Making the above assumptions about the manufacture
      of paper *bags*, even though most paper bags produced are
      brown (i.e., unbleached).

    o Flaw:  In stark contrast to the three previous flaws, the
      evaluation of styrofoam recycling is a best-case scenario,
      and one whose prospects don't look good.  The high
      volume/mass ratio, the very feature that makes plastics
      cheaper to transport, also makes them more expensive to
      recycle!  And when it's contaminated with food (as it is
      when it's used to hold a beverage), it gets even *more*
      expensive to recycle.

=x= There's a newer study -- the Hocking study -- comparing
paper and styrofoam cups.  As an academic, Hocking's work has
a bit more prestige than the Franklin Associates', and his study
is cited more frequently.  Even so, the Hocking study makes the
very same flaws.

=x= If you're going to make statements about Berkeley's policy,
you could at least make an effort to get Berkeley's side of the
story.  You could have contacted the office of Nancy Skinner,
the author of the policy.
    <_Jym_>