The Wall Street Journal ran a fascinating piece a couple of weeks ago on the emergence of the reusable bag as the go-to green choice of retailers nationwide – and the eco-disaster these bags represent.

A lot of leading retailers offer reusable bags – they’re the hip new green thing to be doing… and some municipalities (San Francisco) and retailers (Ikea) have taken the initiative to forbid the use of the ubiquitous "disposable" plastic bag.

But at what cost?

Most reusable bags are usually comprised of a percentage of reused content – meaning that most of those reusable bags are using mostly virgin material. And, because reusable bags are designed to be sturdier, they require more raw material and can require up to 28 times as much energy.

Furthermore, the severity of environmental impact of plastic bags has been disputed (while I personally disagree with this argue it is important to mention.) A recent Newsweek article quotes Rob Krebs from the American Chemistry Council, "Only 4 to 5 percent of all fossil fuels produce all the plastics annually consumed in the U.S. Now, 29 percent of those plastics are used in packaging. So if you follow the reasoning, 29 percent of 5 percent of all fossil fuels is about 1.5 percent. So plastic bags are a minuscule percent of our resources," a statistic that environmental groups do not refute.

Reusable doesn't imply green

Now the simple argument against this logic is that 100 million plastics bags are used in America annually and a measly one percent of those bags are actually recycled. Plus I have seen various studies that indicate a consumer would need to use their reusable bags anywhere from 100-300 times (depending on the study) just to break environmentally even! Seeing both sides argument I set out to making reusable bags in an more responsible way. I feel that reusable bags are the future, but must be produced and used responsibly to have any affect.

This is why garbage can be so great – because we use mostly materials that would’ve ended up in a dumpster (old plastic bags, juice pouches, and other packaging), the bags we create are often THE most eco-friendly option out there. And we do as little as possible to process them – so there is a minimum of energy used to create the final bag. No nasty shredding/melting/reforming process needed. It’s not that we’ve found THE answer – but we’ve found a process that is closer to an answer.

Switching to reusable plastic bag is an excellent step – but as the article points out it can cause many more environmental issues. It just goes to show that we aren’t going to create fundamental change until we can effect a paradigm shift – a game-changing strategy - in the way we think about developing products…

What are your thoughts on reusable bags and their environmental impact? What examples have you seen of game-changing strategies in the marketplace? What markets need these changes most?

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Tom Szaky is CEO of TerraCycle, named by Inc. Magazine as the "Coolest Startup in America -- The ultimate growth company, built on garbage, run by a kid, loved by investors." Tom writes about his experiences as a social entrepreneur and visions for business and technology that leave the world better off on 3p.

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