data shows us that the occasional plastic carrier bag is not that big a deal. In fact, in many ways, a single-use plastic bag is better than some alternatives. At least when it comes to the carbon footprint, it’s much lower than the rest. You’d need to use a paper bag several times, and a cotton one tens to hundreds of times to ‘break even’ with the plastic carrier.35, 36 This is also true for other environmental impacts such as water use, acidification, and the pollution of water with nutrients such as nitrogen. This doesn’t mean you should switch back to using single-use carrier bags: it
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