Paper or Plastic?

This used to be an easy question until we moved to Berkeley. Depending on my mood I would pick one or the other. But when I was asked by the clerk at Whole Foods I froze. I looked at her and nothing came out. I finally had to admit my naivette.

"I'm not sure. You choose." She chose paper. I was relieved. I then told her I wasn't sure what the correct answer was but I knew that plastic sits in a land fill for 10 million years then finally decomposes and poisons the earth with the chemicals that it was made of. Those are the lucky ones. The unlucky ones, although it might be more fun for them, wind up wrapped around a dolphins beak somewhere.

I also told her that if you used paper, it means your killing a tree. She then said "But paper will naturally degrade and new trees will grow out of it."

I envisioned the landfill in Nevada County. I saw the mass of concrete that I had always thrown the paper bags on when I live there. I saw it now with trees that had paper bag roots growing right on top of the concrete. I realized that she was right and that that was a lot better than the dolphin image or the poison earth image.

"Thanks for helping me. I'm very new to this" I told the woman, as I turned to head out the door with my bag of frozen enchiladas.