There is a simple choice that many of us have to make on a daily or weekly basis. Imagine yourself at the supermarket when you are faced with the same old choice: paper or plastic? Which one do you choose and why? And also, which one to choose? Many of us don't stop to think that such a simple decision could have such an impact on the environment, but recently there has been a lot of attention paid to the packaging we choose to use. Environmentalists, commercial businesses, and government officials are particularly concerned about this issue because landfill capacity in this country is decreasing and because containers and packaging account for 29.6 percent of municipal solid waste volume in the United States. According to a study by Franklin Associates LTD, both paper and plastic bags cause stress on the environment. So, do we as a society choose to cut down forests, process the pulp and bleach it with chlorine to make paper bags, or use petroleum to make our plastic bags? According to watershedmedia.org "About half of America's total municipal solid waste volume is packaged - at least 800 pounds per person each year - and the 'upstream' costs of the energy and resources used to make the packaging are even more alarming" ( 2014). To determine which packaging you should choose when at the supermarket, both sides will be compared and discussed. First we'll take a look at where brown paper bags come from. Paper comes from trees: lots of trees. The logging industry is huge, and the process used to put that tree in a paper bag at the supermarket is time-consuming and usually takes a heavy toll on the planet. The trees are first found, then marked and cut... down the middle of the paper... torn, which leads to a lower quality product. Essentially, plastic is often transformed into less functional products, meaning it is difficult to make new plastic bags from old plastic bags. You can gain more knowledge about using and recycling different types of bags by looking at the facts. on emissions, overall energy and production and recycling costs. According to life cycle analysis by Franklin Associates, Ltd, our plastic bags create fewer air emissions and require less energy over the life cycle than either type of bag per 10,000 equivalent uses. This means that plastic creates 9.1 cubic pounds of solid waste versus 45.8 cubic pounds for paper, and plastic creates 17.9 pounds of air emissions versus 64.2 pounds for paper, as well as plastic creating 1.8 pounds of waste dispersed in water versus 31.2 pounds of paper..