The Editor:
I got over the stigma of being branded a thief if my store purchases were not carried out in the shop's plastic bag, but I'm not over being forced to spend $5 or more for a box of plastic bags I once got gratis.
We have four garbage bins at home that I lined with plastic shopping bags; two I empty into the two we throw away every week, not including our recyclables and the kitchen scrap bin lined with paper bags from mushroom purchases.
Like many folks, I don't carry a reusable bag everywhere, so I now have a collection of plastic-lined totes that I am sure take many years, if ever, to decompose.
They do not fit in my waste baskets.
I not only reuse plastic bags for bin liners, but to store things and to carry wet items, meals for seniors or hats/toiletries to the homeless who love the bags for storage.
Now, I am not only forced to spend $50 for a small bag of groceries, if I forget my tote, I must spend 25 cents for a useless paper bag (see how long that lasts with a litre of milk or some frozen peas in it) that I NEVER reuse or a Loonie or two for another tote bag.
I cannot reuse or even recycle the plastic bag that the frozen peas come in, but I am wasteful for wanting a reusable plastic bag to carry them home in.
The irony.
- Mary Ruth Olson, New Westminster
