Are cloth bags the best choice for the planet?

Collaboration with

Help Up

According to the report published by the UN “

Our planet is drowning in plastic pollution

“Worldwide, some 10 million plastic bags are consumed every minute. In 2018, each Spaniard used on average one bag every two days. The truth is that consumption has been decreasing year by year thanks to public awareness and shopping alternatives. You can read about it in the article “

Say goodbye to single-use plastic bags.

” from the HelpUP blog.

That is why every July 3rd is celebrated as the “International Plastic Bag Free Day”.
“International Plastic Bag Free Day” is celebrated every July 3rd.
with the aim of reducing the use of single-use bags. A single plastic bag has an average lifespan of 15 minutes and is then discarded, ending up, in the worst case, in the environment polluting the seas. Each bag takes more than 100 years to degrade. In Spain, we still consume an average of 180 plastic bags per person.

Unfortunately, with the COVID-19 crisis, the consumption of single-use plastics has grown considerably and has caused us to put ourselves on “pause” for a limited period of time. We have all been tempted to go back to using plastic bags when we have gone to the supermarket, the packages we received at home came with more plastic than ever before. Something that may be understandable but cannot become an excuse.

CLOTH BAGS, THE PERFECT ALTERNATIVE?

Cloth bags seem to be the perfect alternative to replace plastic bags for good. These are some of their advantages compared to those of paper or raffia

• They are the most sustainable alternative. Bringing our own bag from home, washed and disinfected, is undoubtedly the best option. They are also easily washable, a clear advantage over the widely used raffia bags.
• Last longer. Cloth bags are more resistant than paper, plastic or raffia bags can be used hundreds of times.
• You can customize them. There are a multitude of designs and alternatives that allow you to go shopping while maintaining your style.
• Easy to store. Who has not experienced difficulties in storing and folding raffia and plastic bags? Cloth bags save space and time.
• Producing them consumes fewer resources. The energy used to produce paper bags is much higher than that used for cloth bags.. In addition, pThey can be produced in an environmentally friendly way, e.g., from organic cotton.

Most common shopping bags are made of polyethylene: a non-biodegradable plastic polymer, so we should avoid consuming them.

As you can see, cloth bags represent a great advantage over plastic bags, but we must continue to consume responsibly. The effort to eliminate plastic bags will be useless if we accumulate cotton bags in our closet. If every time we go to an event, to the supermarket or similar we tend to accumulate this type of bags. We must extend their life cycle as long as possible.

An article published by EL ESPAÑOL opens the debate on cloth bags under the title “These are the times you have to use your cloth bag to make it less toxic than the plastic one” We invite you to reflect on the subject and comment on what you thought.

Fortunately, society is becoming more and more aware of the need to eliminate plastic bags and we know that thanks to the Law, from 2020, we will have to celebrate this day more than ever, since single-use plastics will have disappeared, and although not all plastic bags seem to fall into this category, we will see many more sustainable alternatives for our consumption.

Companies such as HelpUP work to further enhance environmental partnerships and initiatives, such as volunteers cleaning up beaches and terrestrial ecosystems, in companies and among individuals to make plastic bags and all single-use plastics disappear from our lives as soon as possible, with a strong emphasis on meeting the SDGs.

That’s why, since 2018, it has formed an alliance with.
BRUSHBOO
to offer other companies
Eco-kits
containing personal care and hygiene products made from bamboo, such as toothbrushes, dental floss and bottles to replace the typical plastic ones.

Rather than consuming one thing or another, it is about consuming as little as possible and extending the life cycle of products as much as possible, always keeping the focus on circular consumption.

The key is to REDUCE the use of single-use plastics until their use is no longer necessary. For the time being, both companies and individuals have the commitment to do our bit for the preservation of our planet.