And New Jersey banned paper bags!

I'm old enough to remember when plastic bags were pushed as the environmentally superior option. Something about cutting down to many trees for bags.

Then make the paper out of hemp.

Yes, sigh, the "Save the trees argument" it never did make much sense. first and most important. trees are a renewable resource. second, the best trees for paper are from small farmed trees. not old growth forest.

The actual take away should have been, the bigger the paper industry, the more trees there will be.

If you are grasping you can bring modern carbon sequester theory into the argument. but I will admit that is too complicated a subject for me to feel comfortable leaning on it.

I feel like humans have trouble with the concept that the environment is not just one single thing, and that something can be good in one way but bad in another.

Its kind of like all those wine is good for you vs bad for you studies where both are kind of correct but in different ways.

Oh but they very kindly sell super thick plastic bags at checkout for a dollar.

And that plastic bag is 1,000 times worse for the environment than the ones they banned.

stupid. they grow on trees and can be recycled. we should be using as much paper as possible.

Do you reuse them 8+ times?

I use the paper for other things once they rip from use.

Assume I get 4 reuses out of a paper bag, and I use 4 bags per week. I don’t think I could replace 4 bags worth of paper per month that I would have bought otherwise.

They can then be recycled.

True, but recycling takes water and energy. You’d probably still going to have to use them yourself a fair few times to make it a net positive.