Editor, The News:
Re: Single-use plastic bags more hygienic.
I notice that Diane Hunter doesn’t mention the final stage part of the cradle-to-grave cycle of plastic bags.
Everybody should know by now that we need to keep plastic out of our environment. It is damaging the wildlife in our oceans and, because it takes centuries to decompose, we already have a huge amount of it in our environment that people are trying to deal with.
Some previously beautiful shorelines have been pretty much destroyed by plastic trash.
I reuse cloth bags dozens of times before laundering them. I keep them clean by putting produce into reusable nylon bags that are themselves cleaned simply by running them under cold water.
When laundered, my cloth bags are a small part of a big load and they are hung to dry.
At the end of their life cycle, they will be added to my compost bin and turned back into soil.
Elizabeth J. Rosenau
Maple Ridge
‘Saving the planet’
Editor, The News:
Re: Single-use plastic bags more hygienic.
It was nice to see a letter showing the logical value of single-use plastic bags compared to the ridiculous, thoughtless solution of forcing people to use unhealthy bags all in the name of saving the planet.
What we need are more studies to point out the distorted information of recycling as a whole. Recycling has been a motherhood issue pushed by many vested interest groups.
It does not require any more than an open mind to see how costly the recycling program has become. When you consider the pollution and cost of having many more trucks on the road. The amount of labour just sorting and storing.
If you look at the recycled products, many examples of uneconomical waste are obvious. For example, the four-litre milk jug, which many rinse with hot water. They are then stored, sorted and eventually, a fraction is used for some decking.
Just think about how much could be saved with a central efficiently run furnace that could recover so much, including sorting out plastic, just put in one garbage container.
Recycling can be profitable for things like metal. Businesses recycle metal without subsidies. Other recyclables are only economical with the large subsidies provided by the extra costs added to your grocery bills.
If an efficient burning system is too costly, garbage can be buried as it has in the past. We have a lot of land that can be used. Perhaps in the future it would be economical to recycle old garbage.
Dan Banov
Maple Ridge
