If you have bought things in supermarkets or ordered takeout in recent years, then you must be familiar with non-woven bags.
Since the comprehensive implementation of the “plastic restriction order”, disposable plastic bags have gradually faded out of the market, and non-woven bags have quickly become the number one substitute for plastic bags with the name “cloth bag” and reusable labels. Walking into any large supermarket, there are almost all non-woven shopping bags hanging at the checkout counter; Ordering takeout, the outer packaging bag delivered is likely to be made of non-woven fabric material.
But an awkward fact is emerging: Non woven bags may not be more environmentally friendly than plastic bags, and in some cases even worse.
What the hell is going on here?
’Bag’ is a beautiful misunderstanding
Let’s start with the name.
Many people think that non-woven bags are just “cloth bags”, subconsciously equating them with cotton and linen fabrics. But the truth is: the main raw material for non-woven bags is polypropylene (PP), which is essentially plastic, just shaped like cloth.
Non woven fabric is a type of non-woven fabric made directly from polymer slices through processes such as melt spinning, mesh laying, and thermal bonding. The general manager of a domestic environmental technology company clearly stated: “Non woven bags are not ‘cloth’ bags, their standard name is’ non-woven fabric ‘. The word’ cloth ‘may make people associate its raw material with natural materials, but in fact, its main raw material is PP (62%), which is also the main polymer component of synthetic plastics. Its essence is still non degradable plastic products. In the natural environment, its degradation process is as slow as traditional plastic bags. ”
That is to say, the plastic restriction aims to restrict “non degradable plastics”, and non-woven bags belong to this category.
Controversy over a decimal point: 11 uses, is it a bottom line or a luxury?
If you think replacing plastic bags with non-woven bags is already environmentally friendly, scientific data may change your opinion.
According to multiple life cycle assessment (LCA) studies, the production process of non-woven bags requires much more energy and resources than disposable plastic bags – the amount of polypropylene material required to manufacture the cheapest non-woven bag is about 15 times that of a plastic bag of the same size.
If used only once, the energy consumption of a single non-woven bag is 17.8 times that of a plastic bag, and the greenhouse gas emissions are 16.7 times that of a plastic bag.
That is to say, if you hold a non-woven bag and think you are environmentally friendly, but throw it away after only using it once, the burden you cause to the environment is actually more than ten times greater than using plastic bags.
So how many times do we need to use it to ‘recoup’?
The answer given by the study is that non-woven bags need to be reused at least 11 times in order to have a better carbon footprint than disposable plastic bags. The study on Earth Day in Taiwan also pointed out that non-woven bags need to be reused 11 times to reduce their environmental impact to the same level as plastic bags that are only used once.
In other words, 11 times is the “passing line” for environmental protection.
Reality is tough: most non-woven bags are only used once
The ideal is full, but the actual data is shocking.
In 2024, the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Commission conducted a survey on the consumption of takeaway tableware, and the results were shocking: nearly 30% of the respondents directly used non-woven bags as garbage bags, and 42.6% of them would not reuse them outdoors.
Another study by the Yangtze River Delta Consumer Protection Committee Alliance also showed that 40% of respondents would not use non-woven bags outside due to their poor quality and unattractive appearance. Many businesses, in order to reduce costs, turn non-woven bags into low weight products made of lightweight materials that can be easily torn by hand. When decorating slightly heavier items, the bottom of the bag will be sewn open, making it impossible to reuse.
This creates a highly ironic situation: the original intention of plastic restrictions was to reduce the use of disposable plastics, but in reality, non-woven bags often become “disposable” products. As commented by some media, “This may be an unexpected ‘tragedy’ brought about by the plastic restrictions
Not only non-woven bags: all “eco-friendly bags” have usage thresholds
In fact, the “environmental paradox” of non-woven bags is not an isolated case. All shopping bags labeled as “environmentally friendly” face the same problem: only by reusing them enough times can environmental commitments be fulfilled.
According to data from the Danish Ministry of Environment and Food, the required number of uses for shopping bags made of different materials is as follows: low-density polyethylene bags (thicker plastic bags) commonly used in supermarkets need to be reused 4 times; Non woven polypropylene bags require 11 cycles; Paper bags require 43 times; Cotton bags, on the other hand, require up to 131 times of reuse due to the water and land consumption of cotton planting and the high energy consumption during processing.
True environmental protection does not depend on materials, but on usage habits.
What do environmentalists say? Repeated use is the key principle
The true environmental significance of eco-friendly bags lies in their repeated use. The more times a single eco-friendly bag is used, the more valuable it becomes. Not wasting every eco-friendly bag is the key to promoting eco-friendly bags
The proliferation of eco-friendly bags is not environmentally friendly, and even the most eco-friendly bags can only demonstrate their value through repeated use… The best eco-friendly bag is the one you already have at home
Environmental experts have further criticized the proliferation of “disposable” non-woven bags: “Some businesses, in order to reduce the losses caused by plastic restrictions, widely use lightweight and easily damaged non-woven bags to replace them, which to some extent violates the original intention of plastic restrictions and leads to new pollution, which needs to be highly valued
Li Chunhua, the project manager of the Pacific Environmental Resources Center, also pointed out that there is no single solution for plastic pollution control. Internationally, comprehensive strategies such as source reduction, reuse, recycling, material substitution, and end of pipe disposal are widely advocated, rather than just “exchanging one bag for another”.
Finally, true environmental protection begins with “reuse”
So, how should we view non-woven bags?
A rational attitude is not to affirm or deny it one size fits all, but to face its duality:
-If you treat it as a disposable bag and throw it away after one use, it is even less environmentally friendly than plastic bags.
-But if you are willing to reuse it and let it work for 11 times or even longer, it is indeed much more environmentally friendly than plastic bags.
Environmental protection is never a matter of what bag to buy, but how to use the bag.
Next time, when you’re about to throw away the non-woven bag that was delivered for takeout, why not stop and think: does it still have a chance to “work”? Folding it casually and putting it in your bag, and taking it with you when going shopping – these seemingly insignificant small actions are the true source of power for the plastic limit order.
For enterprises, instead of producing a large number of low-quality and cheap non-woven bags to indirectly increase environmental burden, it is better to improve product quality, make the bags durable and reusable, and establish a recycling mechanism.
After all, regardless of the material, the best eco-friendly bag is the one you have been using.
Dongguan Liansheng Non woven Technology Co., Ltd. was established in May 2020. It is a large-scale non-woven fabric production enterprise integrating research and development, production, and sales. It can produce various colors of PP spunbond non-woven fabrics with a width of less than 3.2 meters from 9 grams to 300 grams.
Post time: Jun-07-2026