Does it take less energy/is it better for the environment to wash a plastic bag or use a new one and why?

Question

Let's say I'm talking about a conventional super-thin plastic bag (the kind found in the produce section) used to keep lettuce, and it takes a pint of hot water to wash/rinse it, and landfill the ones I don't use.
I'd like to be able to use the same info to determine if it's better to reuse bags or throw away plastic wrap.  Let me know what you factor in -e.g. the energy used to make the food to provide the energy used by the bag washer (I wonder if it's significant), the energy used to obtain the plastic, the components of crude that goes into it.  Let's assume the water is heated with natural gas.  Please identify your assumptions.

Liz · Accepted Answer

The real answer here is to not use the bag at all. That is the answer to a lot of questions about which method is better. It is also, usually, the hardest to do. The order in the methodology of green living is reduce, reuse, recycle, and the best is to reduce your usage of throw-away things. I have a mesh bag for veggy shopping and a canvas bag for general food shopping...but it took me a long time to train myself to carry and use them.

michael_white2 · Answer

If you're using a thin plastic bag to bag produce at your store you wouldn't need to wash it out as I hope, you're washing your food once you get home already?

I'd only worry about washing it out with a quick rinse if some stray juice dripped in the bag so that it doesn't collect bacteria. 

I'd say, that re-using a bag like this multiple time until it fell apart would go a long way to conserving your land fills. Plastic doesn't deteriate so it would greatly reduce the amount going into the landfill if every person was able to cut back their use of these bag. For instance...if you get five uses out of the bag before having to throw it away, you just eliminated 80% of the waist that would be generated by getting a new one every trip to the store.

donfletcheryh · Answer

If we can avoid doing both, that would be proffered, provided we can accomplish the objective of washing or making new.

If we have no significant material on the surface so that merely exposing the bag to ultraviolet light from the sun, we can avoid both and have a sanitary bag.
If we need to add some cold water for cleaning, reclaiming the water, even using it to irrigate food plants, and then use sunlight to sterilize, that is our second choice.

It will be rare that heating water will accomplish anything, so we leave that out.
A very small amount of detergent to effect dirt release, in a very small amount of cold water, followed by clear water rinse and sunlight is next.

As we go to thinner and thinner plastic wrap, the advantage of cleaning diminishes. But the next step in economy is to send the bag with many others to be reprocessed into crude  via pyrolysis . This process does not depend on getting the bag clean or having it moderately clean.

BDG · Answer

It seems India has a perfect plan in creating money in recycling.. our unbelievably capitalistic culture needs to do this to influence people to actually recycle.  I think the best plan for both you and the environment is to recycle them flat out... either way at least you are one of the few that care about the environment.

Anonymous · Answer

The best option would be to sell the used plastic bags to the companies that recycle plastic. In your country I don't know, but in India there are vendors who purchase plastic bags, newspapers and other waste material from houses.

so i suggest you to collect the whole month's plastic bags and sell it to companies that recycle it.

Does it take less energy/is it better for the environment to wash a plastic bag or use a new one and why?

5 Answers