When it comes to cost, it is much cheaper
to produce paper
perfume gift box over a paper one. The drawback is, plastic is a petroleum
product. However, it only takes approximately .003%of oil per barrel to produce
a lot of plastic bags. At least 100,000 birds and marine life die each year
because of the plastic that liters our beaches and other public places. This
could be one of the reasons for the choice of paper over plastic in the San
Francisco area.
Paper bag production takes one 20 year old
tree and four times the energy to produce 700 bags. In 1999, America cut down
14 million trees to produce 10 billion paper bags, and that was just for that
year. The impact on our forests is mind boggling. The forests are a major
absorber of green house gases. When we cut them down, and then use clean water
and chemicals to produce the pulp to manufacture printed wine boxes, we create more
greenhouse gases. The sad thing is there is not enough forest areas left to
absorb the pollutants. It doesn't stop there, hence, not enough trees to help
with run-off from heavy rain. So, we've seen more severe flooding in recent years.