Snipped from comments from SFist this morning.

From reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=7 we see that:

Energy to produce: Plastic 594 BTUs, 2511 BTUs. Besides the obvious global warming issues, this means that making paper bags spews more crap into our air an rivers killing animals and humans alike (just not in a way you can take a picture of like with an animal choking on a bag.

Paper sacks generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags. Not even close, paper sucks here. Think of all the animals that die in rivers from waterborne pollutants from people choosing paper.

Energy to recycle 1 bag: Plastic, 17 BTUs, Paper 1444 BTUs. There’s many secondary effects here — all the energy to heat up a paper bag vat of chemical goo for recycling causes power plants to spew more crap into the air, release carbon, etc.

Current research demonstrates that paper in today’s landfills does not degrade or break down at a substantially faster rate than plastic does.

It’s not even close. If you have to use a nonreusable bag, choose plastic and then try to recycle it at Safeway when you’re done. Even if you don’t recycle plastic is the clear winner.

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