True Cost of Plastic Bags

I have always wondered how expensive plastic bags really are. The only problem is how to calculate this. I have read at more than a few sources that stores spend over $4 billion a year for these bags. That doesn’t include the full cost. These bags don’t biodegrade in landfills, and they are often littered away. In the USA getting rid of plastic bags would in theory save consumers about which is obviously not a ton of money but not inconsequential either. I wanted to take a look at the cost from another angle for this post. How much many plastic bags are needed to drive a car 1 mile. 


I took some liberties with this as I took any facts I could find and tried to verify them when needed. This should at least give a rough idea of what it would take. If anyone feels I missed something glaring let me know.

380,000,000,000 Plastic Bags used by Americans every year

12,000,000 Barrels of Oil

504,000,000 Gallons of Oil

228,000,000 Gallons of Gasoline from that oil. Other products (jet fuel, lubricants, etc.) make up the rest.

It is tough to get an actual average fuel economy of cars on the road. I will go with 21.6 MPH which is probably very generous.

4,924,800,000 Total Miles that could have been driven if we did not use plastic bags.

So for every 77 bags or so that we use we could have driven a car a mile for free.

Now this very rough back of the envelope calculations does not include the cost of transporting the oil for production, energy used to produce them and then to transport the final product.

This is why it is so important to use reusable bags whenever you can when you go shopping. While this only about a 1 day supply of oil being used for plastic bags each year it would help us achieve energy independence. Also plastic bags do not break down for over 1000 years and even then they only become smaller and smaller toxic pieces that eventually infiltrate our ground and water system. On top of that they are costly to clean up because they are littered so often. In this article it mentions a town of 500 that spent over $6,000 a year cleaning up plastic bags. How many times do you drive down a street or see them by a river bed.

To be fair reusable bags also have to be shipped long distance but they will also be reused for many years hopefully and most are made of a cloth that can break down easily when they have outlived their use. 


Other good sites to learn more

http://verdavivo.wordpress.com/2007/10/02/the-real-cost-of-free-plastic-bags/