Are cotton tote bags as good for the environment as we think?

何乾坤

Cotton bags have become a means for brands，retailers and supermarkets to telegraph a planet-friendly mindset—or，at least，to show that the companies are aware of the overuse of plastic in packaging.

“There’s a trend in New York right now where people are wearing merch：carrying totes from local delis，hardware stores or their favourite steakhouse，”says designer Rachel Comey.

So far，so Earth-friendly？Not exactly. It turns out the wholehearted embrace of cotton totes may actually have created a new problem.

An organic cotton tote needs to be used 20，000 times to offset its overall impact of production，according to a 2018 study by the Ministry of Environment and Food of Denmark. That equates to daily use for 54 years for just one bag.

Cotton is water-intensive，and figuring out how to dispose of a tote in an environmentally low-impact way is not nearly as simple as people think，according to Travis Wagner，an environmental science professor at the University of Maine.

You can’t，for example，just put a tote in a compost bin，and only 15 percent of the 30 million tons of cotton produced every year actually makes its way to textile depositories. Even when a tote does make it to a treatment plant，most dyes used to print logos onto them are PVC-based and thus not recyclable；they’re“extremely difficult to break down chemically，”said Christopher Stanev，the co-founder of Evrnu，a Seattlebased textile recycling firm. Printed patterns have to be cut out of the cloth；Mr. Stanev estimates 10 to 15 percent of the cotton Evrnu receives is wasted this way.

That’s not to say cotton is worse than plastic，or that the two should even be compared. While cotton can use pesticides and has dried up rivers from water consumption，lightweight plastic bags use greenhouse gasemitting fossil fuels，are not biodegrade and clog up the oceans.

Buffy Reid，of the knitwear label &Daughter，halted production of her cotton bags in April this year. Aesop is converting the composition of its shopping bags to a 60-40 blend of recycled and organic cotton.“It will cost us 15 percent more，”says Suzanne Santos，the chief customer officer of Aesop，but“it reduces water by 70 percent to 80 percent”.

Some brands are turning to other textile solutions. Designer Ally Capellino recently swapped cotton for hemp，while Hindmarch introduced a new version of her original tote，this time made from recycled water bottles；Nordstrom also uses similar bags in its stores.

In the end，the simplest solution may be the most obvious.“Not every product needs a bag，”Comey says.

棉布袋已經(jīng)成為品牌、零售店和超市傳達(dá)環(huán)保理念的一種手段，至少是要表明企業(yè)對(duì)于過(guò)度使用塑料包裝的態(tài)度。

設(shè)計(jì)師瑞秋·科米說(shuō)：“紐約當(dāng)下掀起了一波背環(huán)保購(gòu)物袋的風(fēng)氣，包括本地熟食店、五金店和最喜愛的牛排餐廳的手提袋?！?/p>

到現(xiàn)在為止看起來(lái)是不是很環(huán)保？未必。事實(shí)證明，棉布手提袋潮流可能引發(fā)了新的問(wèn)題。

丹麥環(huán)境和食品部2018年的一項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，一個(gè)有機(jī)棉手提袋需要被使用2萬(wàn)次才能抵消其生產(chǎn)過(guò)程中對(duì)環(huán)境的總體影響。也就是說(shuō)，必須每日?qǐng)?jiān)持使用一個(gè)手提袋長(zhǎng)達(dá)54年。

緬因大學(xué)環(huán)境科學(xué)系教授特拉維斯·瓦格納指出，棉布的生產(chǎn)需要耗費(fèi)大量水資源，用盡可能環(huán)保的方式處理廢棄棉布袋也遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)沒(méi)有人們想的那么簡(jiǎn)單。

比如說(shuō)，你不能直接將棉布袋放進(jìn)堆肥箱里。每年生產(chǎn)出的3000萬(wàn)噸棉布只有15%會(huì)被制成紡織品。即使一個(gè)棉布袋進(jìn)入了垃圾處理廠，多數(shù)用于印刷標(biāo)識(shí)的染料都是聚氯乙烯材質(zhì)的，無(wú)法被回收利用。位于西雅圖的紡織品回收公司Evrnu的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人克里斯多夫·史坦涅夫說(shuō)，這些染料“極難被化學(xué)分解”。棉布上印有圖案的部分必須被裁掉，據(jù)史坦涅夫估計(jì)，Evrnu公司收到的棉制品約有10%到15%是這樣被浪費(fèi)掉的。

這并不是說(shuō)棉布袋比塑料袋更糟，或者二者可以相提并論。盡管生產(chǎn)棉花需要使用殺蟲劑，還會(huì)耗費(fèi)大量的水，但是制作輕薄塑料袋的化石燃料會(huì)產(chǎn)生溫室氣體，不能被生物降解，還會(huì)在海洋中堆積成山。

針織服裝品牌&Daughter的巴菲·里德今年四月已經(jīng)停止生產(chǎn)棉布袋。護(hù)膚品牌伊索開始轉(zhuǎn)向生產(chǎn)60%回收棉和40%有機(jī)棉混紡的購(gòu)物袋。伊索的首席客戶官蘇珊娜·桑托斯說(shuō)：“這將讓我們的成本增加15%，但是能使耗水量降低70%到80%?！?/p>

一些品牌轉(zhuǎn)而使用其他針織面料。設(shè)計(jì)師箱包品牌Ally Capellino最近用麻取代了棉，而希德瑪芝品牌推出了一款用回收水瓶制作的新版原創(chuàng)手袋。諾德斯特龍百貨店也在門店使用了類似材質(zhì)的購(gòu)物袋。

說(shuō)到底，最簡(jiǎn)單的解決方案或許也是最顯而易見的。正如科米所說(shuō)：“不是每個(gè)產(chǎn)品都需要袋子?！?/p>