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LETTERS: Plastic bags an ‘easy feel-good fix’

Bags have secondary uses, other problems more pressing
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Readers say they reuse plastic bags and there are other priorities for cleaning up the environment. (Black Press files)

Re: Politicians pose on plastic bags (B.C. Views, Jan. 8).

Tom Fletcher’s column about the “single use” plastic grocery bags is right on.

So politicians can ban merchants from supplying plastic bags for purchases and calling them a single-use bag. How many times is a plastic kitchen waste bag used? I think it would make more sense to ban kitchen waste bags.

Personally I’d rather hear that politicians are tackling the never-talked-about masses of styrofoam on our beaches and in our oceans. Take a walk around your local marina to see how many bazillion pieces of bite-sized styrofoam you see floating around. Or walk on a beach, you’re pretty much guaranteed to see chunks of styrofoam just waiting to break up.

Politicians talk about banning grocery bags because it’s an easy feel-good fix. Let’s get some action going about banning styrofoam in our oceans.

Gloria Heisterman, Campbell River

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Thanks to Tom Fletcher for voicing opposition to the plastic bag ban. With all the other more important ways of protecting the environment, a small minority chose banning plastic bags.

I am always running out of plastic bags because I use the bags I get to line my garbage bins. When shopping for groceries, most of the time I take my own bags, and when I forget I ask for a plastic bag. I’m disappointed when given a paper bag, which I take home and recycle, whereas I would have re-used the plastic bag.

Christine Hume, Sidney