[Music]
plastic bags seemed to be one of the
most hated things on the planet but did
you know that when it comes to things
like climate change paper and cotton
bags are actually much worse for the
planet than plastic when people look at
environmental impacts they tend to focus
right at the end of the lifecycle
analysis they see the plastic pollution
that's a massive problem but what far
fewer people see is right at the
beginning the production side in fact
the plastic bag was originally invented
to help save the planet - my dad the
idea that people would simply throw
these away would be bizarre that's ral
toulon his father Stan Gustav Toulon is
credited with inventing the plastic bag
we know today back in Sweden in 1959
back then people use paper bags a lot
and for those they needed to cut down a
lot of trees which wasn't exactly great
for the planet Sten had an idea he
worked out if he could create a strong
bag that was light and would last for
ages then people could use it over and
over again and that would mean fewer
trees being chopped down which would be
better for the environment is very much
a improvement on what the was before he
always carried one his pocket folded up
you know what we're all being encouraged
to do today which is to take your own
bags to the shop he was doing back in
the 70s and 80s just naturally because
why wouldn't you problem is these bags
were so convenient that we humans we got
lazy
we just throw them away after we were
done with them plastic bags weren't
single used but they became single-use
and it's one of the reasons we have this
plastic pollution problem today a lot of
countries now charge you for a plastic
bag the idea being that you won't want
one if you have to pay for it and in
some countries they've banned these bags
altogether so a lot of us are ditching
plastic and we're using paper and cotton
bags more instead but those bags aren't
exactly Saints paper carrier bag they
use more energy than usual to water to
produce and the heavier as well so
depending on where they're made there's
an extra environmental impact of
transporting them to the shops cotton
bags are even worse how to news is a lot
of war
and it is quite an intensive crop to
produce so this is the same concerns
we've got with some of the fast fashion
issues on the flip side plastic backs
are very efficient to make we need very
little oil super little energy and then
we have a plastic bag to be as
environmentally friendly as a single-use
plastic bag that's getting recycled a
paper bag has to be used at least three
times while cotton bags need to be used
at least 131 times that the same
environmental impact as a single-use
plastic bag which gets recycled it makes
it hard to know well what bag should I
be using if I don't want to kill the
planet the answer is to just use a bag
you already own and keep using it again
and again and again and when it breaks
mend it or recycle it