A man carries a plastic shopping bag on Sept. 30 in San Francisco, Calif. California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the nation’s first statewide ban on single-use plastic bags. (Kimberly White, Getty Images)
Re: “California becomes first state to ban plastic bags,” Oct. 1 news brief.
An estimated 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide every year, 100 billion in the United States. I dispute the premise that plastic shopping bags get used once. Many families use the bags for rubbish. There are probably millions of people using these bags for multiple purposes. Instead of getting free multi-use plastic shopping bags, will moderate-income persons be forced to buy plastic bags?
Why are plastic bags being targeted? There are thousands of product containers made of plastic, not to mention other product uses. A more accurate affront would be on plastics themselves. We all know how far that would get. The outcry would be, what about convenience and cost? Which brings us back to the original quandary.
We need not apply knee-jerk solutions to a very complex issue. I was perfectly happy with brown paper bags until I discovered multiple uses for free plastic shopping bags.
Anthony Williams, Aurora
This letter was published in the Oct. 6 edition.
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