With plant closing, we may soon bag shoppers’ choice

  • Julie Muhlstein / Herald Columnist
  • Friday, January 4, 2002 9:00pm
  • Local News

Paper or plastic? With war, terrorism and a recession to worry about, who cares? Just put it in a bag.

Silly as it seems with all that’s going on, I care. I have this nagging little concern. It started when I read about nearly 100 workers losing jobs last week at Port Townsend Paper Corp. on the Olympic Peninsula.

After 65 years of making paper grocery sacks, the company produced its last bag Dec. 20 and sent 90 workers out the door Dec. 27.

Company president John Begley, quoted in the Port Townsend Leader newspaper, said bag production had become increasingly unprofitable as cheaper plastic dominated the market. The company will earn more by shipping paper to its box plants in British Columbia, according to news reports.

Maybe this caught my eye because I need something trivial to fret about to divert attention from darker fears. Paper or plastic, now there’s a question we can at least grasp.

The Port Townsend layoffs left me wondering whether a day will come when grocers will no longer offer the option. Paper or plastic? I often confound baggers by answering, "Both, please."

I need a few plastic bags for the unpleasant cleanup of canine waste. There’s nothing like plastic to keep the dirty clothes from the clean in a suitcase.

For hauling groceries, though, I much prefer paper sacks. They stand up in the car. They keep oranges from rolling around. They keep a loaf of bread from being flattened like a pancake. They don’t cut off circulation in your fingers when you lift them.

While my choice is paper and plastic, if forced to choose I’d want kraft sacks. I use the heavy brown paper for everything from covering schoolbooks to spreading on a cutting board to cooling cookies from the oven.

Reading statistics from the Film and Bag Federation, an industry group once called the Plastic Bag Association, I feel like a dinosaur. Plastic bags were introduced in supermarkets in 1977. Today, four out of five grocery bags used in the United States are plastic.

I should be grateful stores offer paper at all. Plastic-bag carriers apparently subsidize my sack habit. High-quality paper bags cost 5 cents apiece or more to make, said Chuck Madison, Port Townsend Paper’s vice president of human resources. A plastic bag costs just half a cent.

I can’t be all that smug about how my choice affects the environment, either. There are decent arguments on both sides. If you don’t believe it, peek at two Web sites.

The forest products company Willamette Industries Inc. sings the praises of paper sacks at www.wii.com/bag.htm.

Paper bags, the Oregon-based company says, "are made of a renewable natural resource. They can be made into new paper, require less energy than plastic to be recycled, are biodegradable, are safe for small children and pose less of a threat to wildlife."

And plastic?

Go to www.plasticbag.com/environmental/issues.html for the Film and Bag Federation’s pitch. A graphic shows the relative size of a stack of 2,000 paper bags vs. 2,000 plastic bags. Plastic takes up about a fifth of paper’s space. At recycling sites nationwide, plastic bags are collected to be turned into pellets and made into new products.

Paper or plastic? Neither choice is guilt-free.

While we’re on that pesky subject of guilt, I’ll admit I’m reluctant to fuss about bags when 90 bag makers are out of a job.

Guilty or not, I like paper — tall bags with handles. I need those paper bags. Would I pay a few extra cents to get them? I guess.

Would I like it? You guess.

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