Why don't people think??

Question

Everyone is so worried about cutting down a few trees. There fore no more paper bags. ONLY plastic. This makes completely no sense considering you need oil to produce plastic. You can grow trees back but not oil. So what do you think about it????

Answer 1

People want easy answers to complex problems.  You can grow oil.  The landfills with all that plastic will become oil in 100-500 million years.  You just have to wait longer than with trees.  People don't want their favorite trees cut but they live in wood houses with wood furniture and read the paper.  So all these people are just telling you what they want you to do.  I see Sierra Club members driving SUV's telling everyone else what they should do.  So do what you think is right and don't worry about these know it all.

Answer 2

or you could avoid all that and use a REUSABLE bag. how bout that? the best option of all  

Answer 3

If people plant trees to compensate for the ones cut down, then there is no problem.  I do agree, there is a problem with oil.  If we can think outside the box, and make more of an effort to figure out solutions, I think there will be a way out of this situation.

Answer 4

There's not gonna be ONLY plastic. So many other materials can be used to make bags.

Answer 5

The reason some people don't 'think' is because they're too set in their ways and can't be bothered to change.

Trees need not be destroyed completely, they can be managed by coppicing.

I've read recently that bamboo is a good alternative to trees, it grows quickly and is strong.  Bamboo is versatile and can be used not only for building, furniture, fencing etc. but paper and cloth.

There are alternatives to plastic bags, paper is making a comeback and you can also use your own canvas bags.

Answer 6

I agree. Plastic bags will only add to all the waste causing an increase in pollution. Moreover, paper can be recycled.

Answer 7

You are absolutly right and it takes more energy to recyle the plastic. Plus, you can always roll the bags tight and use them to start a nice warm fire.  

Answer 8

Use recyclable bags such as cloth which is organic and will rot down and become humus (plant food!) when expired. It aint rocket surgery. LOL.

Answer 9

Reading and riding a bike.  Do you use petro and drive a huge car?  Look at fat folks in SUV vehicals.  Look at that!

Answer 10

I think everyone should get those cloth tote bags. You can reuse it MANY times.

People forget how much pollution and waste and created by even making paper bags. There are many processes which have to strip the trees, and boil out the lignin etc. which flows into rivers and waterways. Do a little research and you'll see how bad the paper industry really is. Plastic is horrible too!

Answer 11

Even though plastic bags need oil to be produced, they are easier to reuse because they take up less space and are less likely to tear.  As for the paper bags, humans are cutting them down faster than they can replant them.  Keep in mind that all of the CO2 that the trees are using to grow is released back into the air once they are cut down, and since CO2 is the main contributor to climate change, that is bad for the environment.  The best solution would be to use reusable bags.  In Ireland they charge you when you have to use paper or plastic bags from the grocery store and that pretty much solved the problem for their county.  

Answer 12

It's not cutting down a few trees that environmentalists are worried about, it is cutting them down faster than they can grow back. We use wood for a variety of things, paper building etc. The problem comes when we either use more than we are planting, don't take into account it could take decades for a tree to reach maturity or when we destroy habitats.

In South and Central America they are clear cutting rainforest so they can grow crops for other nations, many of the companies down their are American owned and have work practices similar to sweat shops. We are permenatly destroying habitat and making it impossible for many species to survive.

Here in the US we are fighting to keep the areas of National forest safe. There is more value to a tree than just paper or building materials. Laws have made it so most of our forests are managed in a sustainable way, so we will have wood in theory forever. If we had continued to log the way we had in the past we would have a lot less wood and chances are anything made of it would be much more expensive.

The other arguement to be made for reusable bags is to reduce what goes into a landfill. We all know we should recycle, we all know what can be recycled, yet many of us don't even when we have curbside recycling programs. Out landfills are filling up and we are running out of places to build them. In some of the more congested areas they either burn garbage or ship it to another state. One choice puts harmful chemicals in the air the other costs a lot.

So, I choose reusable bags for self preservation, remember man can't destroy the earth, he can only make it uninhabitable for mankind.

Answer 13

What I think is that both types of bags are using or even wasting our resources.   Some others here said to use reusable bags.   I totally agree, and we have started doing that in our household.   In Europe, they have been doing that for quite a few years now.

Answer 14

I guess it's just easier not to think for oneself.

Actually, we have more trees in the US today than we had 200 years ago.  And that's despite new houses and all the other uses of wood.

As long as paper and wood are needed, companies who provide those resources will continue to plant trees.  That's how it works.  We won't be running out of trees as long as we use paper and wood.

The environmentalists forced a ban of paper bags decades ago forcing the creation of plastic bags for groceries.  I guess they didn't know about supply and demand.  Also that's about when environmentalism was taken over by a bunch of activist anti-capitalists.  

Hey, that rhymes.