According to Frosty Wooldridge of the Denver Post we should forget paper shopping bags and plastic shopping bags and use reusable cotton bags. According to Frosty he has been using his four cotton bags for 28 years though they are now a little tattered.
It is worthwhile doing the maths on this.
Let us assume that 1 of Frosty’s cotton bags replaces 1-2 plastic bags and we assume also that Frosty did his shopping on a weekly basis and used each of his 4 cotton bags each week. This would mean by using his cotton bags he is saving 4-8 plastic bags weekly. This means Frosty is saving more than 200-400 plastic bags every year or 5600-11000 in 28 years.
In a small country like Australia this could translate into a saving of 20-50 million bags weekly or 2.6 billion every year. Now if we look at large countries like China or the USA, and multiply the result by 28 years……………..