Absolutely, you can make plastic baskets which will last for decades.Smitty-48 wrote:
Don't use plastic bags, don't use paper bags neither, don't use any bags at all, use a basket, the problem is not the material so much as single usage disposal.
Same with straws, the USA gets through 500,000,000 plastic straws per day. Completely unnecessarily. If you are germophobic enough to need a straw buy a reusable one, there are plenty of stainless steel, glass and even bamboo products available.
In terms of pure mass, straws are a tiny part of plastic production but they make up a disproportionate amount of what gets into the sea because they go through the plastic reclaimation systems at the water plants. Same with plastic cotton buds. Their smaller size also makes them easier for marine life to ingest and many studies exist showing their impact.
I could churn out pollution stats for the oil/plastics industry to compare with paper but that's not my point. My point is that paper biodegrades relatively harmlessly in the environment whereas plastics do not and straws are a really easy thing to do without.