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A 2020 law banning plastic bags in Vermont has nearly eliminated their use in the state
(www.burlingtonfreepress.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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I do think the BTUs portion is less concerning in the greater context. Both 600 and 2500 are negligible compared to, say, my daily commute, or a single plane trip, or basically any other activity that requires energy.
But the first part is kinda interesting. Doing some super sloppy back of the napkin math, I think that makes paper shopping bags about 6.5% of all paper products made in the US. Paper products account for around 50% of all wood products in the US, so call it just over 3% of total wood use (which may have gone up some due to increased prevalence of paper lately.)
Which isn't nothing for sure. I would have guessed lower. I do think it may be overstating it to say we'd see a huge shift if everyone started using reusable bags overnight. A 3% drop in timber harvesting would be good, but not world changing I would think. But not insignificant either.
Again, I want to point out this is a minor change that you can make that if everyone did, would have a positive impact in this world. Huge impact, maybe not. But when our entire society is built to destroy the planet that we require for life, we need to remove as many cuts as possible.
I hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but conversations like this one are the reason that I have zero faith in humanity. It’s easy to point fingers as the obvious evil we have going on in the world, which clearly has more of a direct threat. But even if we were somehow able to rid the world of the truly despicable, we’d still be left with a world full of ‘its more of an impact than I thought, but still not so bad’ people. And our planet cannot continue on like that. It absolutely amazes me how many people (including good friends of mine) who think the same way. And there is no way to change this mindset, its as ingrained as any of the bigotry and hate on the other side. We just have no chance against this.
I think there's a couple of things in play here though.
First, this kinda has, "if millennials just didn't drink Starbucks they could afford rent" energy. Would it make a difference? Maybe. But in the grand scheme what it would do is just take away something they enjoy, while they remain unable to make their student loan payments, much less but a house. The actual problems are more systematic, and the "don't buy Starbucks" argument is to some degree just a distraction from fixing those more systematic problems (or an intentional effort to divide people so they can't cooperate to fix those systematic issues.)
Second, I think you're maybe exhibiting a little bit more brinkmanship than is warrented. It's important to care about the environment, and there's obviously a ton that needs to be done there. But as you say, there are bigger and worse threats out there than people buying paper bags, and it sounds like you're letting your existential dread over the environment sour your actual, meaningful interpersonal connections. It feels a bit over the top to "lose faith in humanity" just because most people buy paper bags. Most people are good people, and it's not unreasonable for them to take small conveniences, even if those conveniences aren't environmentally "optimal."
I live in a state that has banned the use of them, so no, most people I know don’t use them. The people that said the same thing as you complained for all of a month before they acclimated to a simple fucking task. All parts of our system are fucked, but if it is a trivial matter to unfuck one small part of the system, then we should do that. And then fix the next trivial fucking thing that people say they would rather spend a dollar per bag on and argue for twelve hours about whether or not chopping just 14 million trees per year on top of the other billion trees we chop is all that bad.
This is exactly why I say I have no faith in humanity, your dollar a bag comment says more to how fucked we are than anything. People absolutely will not change. They will literally hurt themselves just so they can hurt the environment because ‘haha, I forget sometimes so I don’t want to try.’ Even when presented with the evidence they ask for on the environmental impacts, they will say ‘worse than I expected, but not that bad when everything else is shit.’ I’m tired of everything being shit. And I’m tired of people saying, oh it’s a just a little shit. Quit accepting shit people. And don’t buy starbucks, because it’s shit coffee from a shit company.
I think the "more than I thought it would be" comment was more a reflection on how low I thought it would be than on how high it is. It's still a pretty tiny fraction of the overall problem.
But, like, look. The optimal decision, and the only way to "stop accepting shit" as you put it, is for every single person to drop what they're doing and go live as a hermit in the woods, and never produce or consume another product.
That isn't realistic for the majority of people though. And while I could succumb to self-flagellation as a form of symbolic protest, I think my time and effort is spent participating in the system as it is, and donating to organizations that can make more systematic changes that might ultimately do some good.
Beating yourself (or others) up for "not doing enough" is at best a form of coping with things that are beyond your control, and at worst a form of alienating people who broadly agree with you.
And, to be clear, I didn't say I'd pay a dollar a bag for any old paper bag. I said I'd pay that much for one with handles. Big difference.
Bringing in a bag to store that I know I am going to be bringing items out of is not self-flagellation. Refusing to bring a bag into a store because I’ll just use a single use item instead is shitty behavior. It’s that simple. Minor shitty behavior? Sure. If you’re cool with that behavior, well obviously this isn’t going to change that opinion. It is a trivial behavior for you to change.
The timber part is no big deal - it’s all farmed trees and sawmill waste product. The water and energy use to make them, store them, ship them is more significant.