The New York Times, ever ready to preach the faith of “climate responsibility,” recently published a piece titled “What Shopping Bags Should I Use?” It’s a fascinating read, not because it provides clarity, but because it demonstrates just how convoluted eco-virtue has become. Spoiler alert: you can’t win. But you can feel like you’re winning, and maybe that’s the point. //

Plastic bags, we are told, are the spawn of fossil fuels, and as such, must be banished. Their recycling rate is a dismal 10%, and their afterlife often involves floating past a turtle’s nose or breaking into confetti-sized microplastics that haunt us for centuries. But here’s the twist—according to not one but two studies cited by the article (from Britain’s Environment Agency and Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency), those unholy plastic bags actually have the smallest environmental footprint of the lot when judged by greenhouse gas emissions.

So how did they become public enemy number one? Simple. They look bad. They’re flimsy, crinkly, and associated with other people who don’t bring their own bags to Trader Joe’s. //

Then there’s paper—renewable, biodegradable, and about as sturdy as wet tissue paper and prone to tearing dramatically halfway across the parking lot, right as your oat milk makes a break for it. Surely this is the sanctified option? Not quite. Paper bags, according to the same British study, need to be reused three times to match the global warming impact of a single plastic bag. Which, for anyone who’s ever had a soggy-bottomed paper bag explode in the rain, is optimistic bordering on delusional.

Still, paper has better PR. Its recycling rate is 43%—respectable, though still meaning most paper bags end up decomposing into methane and carbon dioxide in landfills. Methane, for those keeping theological score, is one of the top demons in the pantheon of greenhouse gases. That’s right: while plastic might just sit there, paper actively farts its way through the afterlife.