The Dilemma of “Reusables”

Recently, The New York Times published an article bringing to light the stark imbalance between the carbon footprint of reusable cotton tote bags and the plastic bags they’re meant to replace. The article references a study that claims one would need to use their cotton tote bag nearly 20,000 times before it offset the carbon emitted in its creation. That boils down to daily use for 54 years. That’s a lot of shopping trips. 

Unsurprisingly, this article got a lot of attention— and for good reason! Much of our society is deep within the grips of greenwashing propaganda that has successfully convinced us that each purchase of the newest, most sustainable, high-tech and low-impact product is a win for our planet and the fight against climate change. Every brand (including the New York Times!) has a cotton bag that they are trying to sell you as the new addition to your environmentally friendly lifestyle. It’s an attractive idea, that simply using a better product can help make the world a better place. Who wouldn’t want to believe that? Unfortunately, that’s just great marketing. Every product we buy likely took an incredible amount of energy and resources to extract, produce, package, and ship. But where does that knowledge leave us? Are we to buy nothing and live off the grid? Not exactly a reasonable option. Are we to say “to hell with it all” and disregard the impact of our purchases? Well, that doesn’t seem particularly helpful either. If you ask me, the best way forward is one that addresses each situation with nuanced consideration — black and white labels of good and bad leave out the gray area that is our reality. 

So what is the reality? Well, for starters, most of our reusable products certainly required far more energy and resources to produce, package, and ship than their single-use counterparts. That doesn’t mean they’re useless, it just means we should value and use them as the investments that they are. If your goal is to reduce carbon emissions, then buying any reusable products when you already have access to ones that are in perfect working order is counterproductive. Yes, that means that sweet Hydroflask, the tote bag with the funny quote on it, the metal straw, and the composite spork — if you already have something that works, the most sustainable purchase is none at all. That mindset is — unflashy as it may be — the only way to make your reusable products a net-win for the earth. 

The other reality is that if your goal is to reduce carbon emissions however you can, you can’t let that goal get clouded by romantic ideals. Disincentivizing future oil production is awesome, unless the way you’re doing it is by leaving an even larger carbon footprint in another industry. Reducing our ever-growing mountains of trash is a fantastic reason to avoid buying a styrofoam cup, unless your strategy to do so includes owning 12 reusable thermoses, 8 of which are lying around your house. 

I hope you’re not feeling attacked right now. This shouldn’t be a source of shame, we’re all trying our best, working with the information we have at the time, trying to make the world a better place! This is just supposed to be a reminder that a useful strategy for navigating the world of single-use and reusable products is simply: “Can I reasonably go without buying this product?” Sometimes the answer is no! But it’s a helpful question to ask yourself whenever you can.

One more thing… Did you notice how I stepped back in that last paragraph to remind us that we’re on the same team? I promise this isn’t me being self-righteous. It’s just so common that conversations regarding our individual behaviors with respect to “sustainability” get tense, personal, critical, and condemnatory. We pit ourselves against each other and blame one another for our current ecological crises. In doing so, we’re not only doing ourselves a disservice, we’re playing into the hands of the industry leaders and politicians who we truly have to blame. The idea of our personal carbon footprint is one that was popularized by none other than British Petroleum (BP). In a campaign that many other industries would follow, BP convinced millions of us that our current ecological and climate trajectories are entirely within our individual control. Clever! Nefarious. Here we are, right now, debating the most sustainable way to navigate single-use paper cups and plastic bags, while the energy industry, transportation industry, and countless others continue to emit GHGs and consume our natural resources at rates that climb and climb and climb, every year. And we elect politicians who’ve got their hands in the pockets of those they swear to protect us from. It’s an uphill battle for sure — but the winning strategy is not one of sedentary defeatism. Electing leaders who speak our voice, putting pressure on industries who disregard our future, and forging our own paths when no one else will, all of these can happen when all of us care. And if having these kinds of conversations while remembering where the battle truly lies gets more of us to care and keeps us on the same team, it’s well worth our time.