Every day, we see new plastic alternatives and initiatives being introduced, ranging from paper shopping bags to incentives to promote re-using, whenever possible. So many, that one would think that plastic alternatives could be an effective solution to plastic pollution. 

However, each plastic alternative needs to be reused numerous times to have a significantly lower environmental impact. Cotton tote bags, for example, would need to be reused 7,000 to 20,000 times (depending on what type of cotton was used to manufacture the bag). 

If you think about the number of resources needed to farm and harvest cotton, the numbers begin to make sense. From the use of agrochemicals and pesticides, and the consumption of water to the conversion of habitat and agricultural use.  

And that’s just one of the alternative materials we’ve been using instead of plastics. The production of glass, for example, has even higher carbon emission rates.

So, it looks almost like these alternative solutions do more harm than good. But are companies aware of this, when they choose to use them? Shockingly, yes. A report from Green Alliance stated that many businesses are beginning to make changes to “put the public at ease”. Several corporations have admitted that they decided to switch to paper bags without fully considering all the environmental consequences. One company has even said: “We are aware that [by switching from plastic to other materials] we may, in some cases, be increasing our carbon footprint.” 

With this being said, companies should not promote a switch to so-called alternatives without proper research on their environmental impacts. Don’t you agree?