Why So Many Merchants Love Using Paper Shopping Bags For Packaging

Many times after you shopping home, the shopping bags for packaging that the stores offer to you may cause some trouble. They’re various – made from paper, cotton, even plastic. And they’re beautiful and can be recycling; throw them away seem a pity. More often, some people will remain the good looking ones, take as a tote for the next shopping.

If you observe carefully, you will found that the paper shopping bags take the most part. Merchants seem to prefer using paper packaging bags, both the brown kraft and the coated paper with beautiful printed. That’s for what? It’s easy to understanding – paper shopping bags have the best cost-effectiveness. It can be explained by the 3 following points:

Environmental Issue

Now is the 21st century, people pay much attention to environmental problems. What material paper bag is the most friendly to the environment is a dispute never stop. What? Isn’t it clear? Cotton absolutely is 10 times eco-friendly than plastic.

Actually, the influences of the environment by human activity are very complicated, so the conclusion is hard to confirm.

Plastic

Plastic bags are primarily made from HDPE or LDPE, which are the byproducts of petroleum refining. Petroleum is a fossil fuel and belongs to non-renewable resources. According to the public data of every major petroleum-producing country, human exploitation of petroleum resources does not yet pose much threat to the environment. But the plastic as a byproduct, the damage to the environment can be said to be a disaster.

Plastic is a synthetic material; no degrading enzyme in nature can degrade it. So it cost a long time to deal with the plastic waste by a simple landfill. We often see that the news reports that some wild animals died because of mistakes eating plastic bags, and there are also many plastic particles have contained in everyone’s body. All these telling the damage of plastic to the earth.

However, the plastic bag has many advantages that other materials can’t compare.

First is its great plasticity, can be made into various sizes, and provides an excellent weight capacity. Besides, plastic is transparent, and this is neither paper and cotton can do. The most important is that plastic is the material with the lowest cost, and that’s why merchants in most regions are standing to use it.

One more thing looks counterintuitive. Without count the pollution caused by plastic litter and suppose that they are all recycled completely, then plastic may be the most eco-friendly one. Due to the great plasticity, it can be reprocessed into other products easily. And as a byproduct of petroleum, plastic will always come to us.

Now most countries in the world, especially most states in the U.S, have published policies about banning plastic bag using. Scientists also work hard to seek and develop a material that can instead be plastic and friendly to the environment. The non-woven bags popular in recent years, the main component of it is PP, a new plastic-type. Although it is still can not be biodegraded, its durability enhances a lot and gets more chance to be reusable.

Paper

The dispute over paper bags is always great. The raw material of it is from natural wood, which seems to damage the environment. But do not forget one thing. Different from petroleum, wood is a renewable resource. Every country keeps planting trees for environmental protection years, and the total area of vegetation keeps growing. Paper is suitable for recycling and reuse, and recycled paper has increased this advantage.

Under a global exercise of strict control over carbon emission, paper is the most welcome of the manufacturers because of its advantages of easy to handle and recycle. Especially the companies who advocate the concept of environmental protection, also gradually changing their products’ packages into paper and abandon plastic.

However, some people should know that the influence of the paper on the environment is not from the trees cutting. It’s from the chemical pollution during the production. Once upon a time, the sewage from processing and printing paper will be discharged into the rivers directly because the cost of purifying them is high, and the effect is not ideal. It will cause huge damage to the water environment and influence the human body indirectly.

Fortunately, now every country, especially China, getting more and more stringent on sewage discharge management. The development of technology has also reduced the purifying cost a lot. The local government lays the special pipeline to connect every factory and the sewage treatment center for unified management. And this is compulsory; one who discharges sewage secretly will be punished harshly.

Cotton

The cotton tote is praised highly by environmentalists. It is like a knapsack, you can reuse it again and again. The most important is that cotton is the same as paper, totally comes from nature, and biodegradable.

It looks very environmentally friendly, isn’t it? But things like we said before, the environmental issues never simple.

Related statistics show that during cotton bag production, from the raw cotton growing to the processing, its influence on the environment seems not much lower than the plastic ones. Different from trees, the cotton plantation needs much help on the large-scale pesticides and machines. This damages the environment in another way, and in the past, it just is ignored.

After all, which material shopping bag is the most eco-friendly is hard to say. Fortunately, science and technology develop fast now; it’s believed that better materials will be invented continually. And as a consumer, what we can do best is reuse the shopping bags as possible as we can. Even though the bag is made from renewable material, reprocessing it will still increase carbon emissions.

Cost Factor

As a merchant, most of the time, the cost is the primary factor for what material shopping bags you offer to your customers.

HDPE and LDPE bags cost the lowest on purchase, transport, and storage. Since Sten Gustaf Thulin invented the first plastic bag in 1965, this convenient package is always loved by merchants. If it wasn’t for the Plastic Ban and higher taxes from the local governments, most merchants would still choose plastic bags for goods packaging.

Cotton shopping bags will be sold as a single good most of the time. If the merchants offer cotton bags for their customers every time, it will lead to a high cost. And after all, the cost will be assumed by the customers themselves, or making the merchants lost their market competitiveness.

And this explains why most merchants choose paper shopping bags now. It is the best choice that balances the cost and environmental protection concept. Another, the paper shopping bags, especially the coated paper one has a great advantage over reusable.

Brand Promotion

For developing your business, brand promotion is one of the most important paths.

Compare with plastic and cotton, the surface of paper shopping bags is flatter. That makes various printing technology can be realized on it. Your Brand Logo, slogan, sale promotion copywriting, and creative design can be shown better in front of your customers. For some luxury brands, paper shopping bags can also bring out the high-grade sense of the goods.

Besides, during some festivals promotion, such as Christmas and Black Friday, you may order tailor-made shopping bags for your customers. Some merchants with less experience may order much over they need. And after the activity, these customized shopping bags are not suitable to be used; sending them to the recycling depot is the most common way.

At this moment, paper bags show a great advantage in recycling. Some countries charge relatively lower on paper products recycle. And some countries, paper products even can be sold at a nice price as waste, helping make up the loss. This is a great favor on your business cost management.