Paper Bags or Plastic Bags? – A Brief Review

Eco-Impact of Plastic and Paper Shopping Bags

This article describes the study of the eco-impact of plastic and paper bags using the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) technique under three different options: usage and disposal criteria with the existing usage behavior to reuse and governmental policies to recycle (option1), usage and disposal criteria as per consumers’ perceptions if systems are in place (option2) and usage and disposal ...

Plastic Bags: Hazards and Mitigation

Environmental Effect on Biodegradability of Plastic and Paper Bags

Biodegradation refers to the chemical dissolution of materials by microorganisms or other biological means. Biodegradable materials are those that can be consumed by microorganisms whereas biodegradability of a material refers to the ability of that material to be decomposed by biological agents, especially bacteria. Plastics are synthetic or semi – synthetic long chain polymeric molecules that...

Folding Paper Shopping Bags

One of the most ubiquitous examples of origami is the common paper shopping bag. In a common model of paper folding, there are a finite number of creases, between which the paper must stay rigid and flat, as if made of plastic or metal plates connected by hinges. We show that (maybe surprisingly), the paper shopping bag cannot be flattened under this model using the usual pattern of creases. Th...

Failure to sterilize in plastic bags.

The ideal container for discarded cultures and other contaminated materials which require autoclaving to render them safe should be reasonably cheap, resistant to corrosion, leak-proof, and capable of allowing the passage of steam to all parts of its contents. Perhaps because of the difficulty of meeting all these requirements with the metal containers which have traditionally been used some la...