It's the age old question, we normally assume that paper bags are better, are they really? Firstly, paper bags require trees to be cut down, to get the paper needed, this leads to habitat destruction; Secondly they require alot of energy and chemicals to produce, much more then their plastic counterpart; Thirdly in their normal life cycle, they create more pounds of pollution. So are they actually better? Not really, but plastic bags aren't that much better too since they aren't biodegradable, so what's the answer to my first question? Neither of them: just use reusable canvas bags! (For more information: http://www.treehugger.com/culture/paper … -know.html )

I agree with you! I think that a reusable canvas bag or a backpack is the solution. People tend to use a lot of plastic/paper bags, like for shopping, and I think that's a really bad habit, because we usually throw them away once we're home.
So.. BACKPACKS FOR THE WIN!

You made a great point! I never thought about the fact that paper bags are just as bad if not worse than plastic bags. Paper and plastic bags are a big part of many peoples daily routines. They use a multitude of them on a weekly basis when grocery shopping. An easy and free way to get canvas bags is to save the bags you get when you shop at cloths store. It is an easy and inexpensive way to get bags that will help with the environment.

A study by Edelman Berland found that even though people understand the environmental friendliness 'reusable' bags', shoppers use them far less frequently than intended. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the people asked reported that they had used a plastic bag in their last grocery errand. It turns out that the vast majority of consumers prefer to have plastic or paper bags when they check out. I wonder why that is?
[Edelman Berland Study](http://web.a.ebscohost.com/pov/detail/d … 153&db=pwh)

That is a great point and an idea that can be brought to the table in many other situations. The greatest sources of pollution are the large companies as something they do that could have such a small impact as a bag is made big by how large the company is. Also your point brings the idea out that not all solutions to problems will be perfect or eliminate the problem entirely. So it is our job to evaluate the effects of all our options and solutions to figure out which one is the best.

You are perfectly right, because we are too lazy to hold a bottle of water by hand and we have to take a plastic bag, even if we have a backpack with us. As i read here [http://bird-rescue.org/our-work/researc … rds.aspx], plastic isn't just polluting the ambient but it's also killing animals. We shouldn't start recycling as much as we can: we must recycle as much as we can.