Letters: A better world, one bag at a time

Re “Ban’s not quite in the bag,” Column, Feb. 11

Plastic bags aren’t banned where I live in Florida, but it’s just as easy, and more responsible, for me to sit my stash of tote bags on my porch and grab them when I go grocery shopping.

In the book “One Can Make a Difference,” filmmaker Rebecca Hosking — who made the documentary “Hawaii: Message in the Waves” — explains that more than 100,000 birds and marine animals die every year after they mistake floating plastic bags for food and eat them.

All of our actions will have some impact on the environment, but using inexpensive reusable bags is a relatively simple, selfless and effective way to reduce animal suffering in the world.

Let’s all make an effort to make the world a kinder, greener place.

Heather Moore

Sarasota, Fla.

Sandy Banks’ column on L.A.’s plastic bag ban made me laugh. The sight of customers juggling items as they head to their vehicles can indeed be amusing.

The ban isn’t going smoothly. I notice most customers at my local market buy paper bags instead of bringing their own reusable totes. I guess the market is racking up a tidy sum.

Before the ban took effect, I saved old plastic and paper bags, enough to fill an entire closet. They are reused at the market, and only after multiple shopping trips and other uses are they finally and properly discarded.

And for that time in the distant future when I run out of those bags, I purchased a carton of 1,000 plastic bags online for about a penny a bag. Problem solved.

Joan Thompson

Valley Glen

I have been using cloth bags for more than five years, and as with anything else, you get better with practice. I keep them in a crate in the trunk and wash them regularly. It just seems like the right thing to do.

I did pick up a tip on a recent shopping trip: A woman had forgotten to bring her bags into the store, so she just asked the clerk to put the purchases back in the shopping cart so she could bag them when she got to her car. Way to go.

Judy Bethe

San Clemente

It’s amusingly (or wincingly?) ironic that, thanks to Banks, our cloth grocery bags are soaking in hot water with a bit of bleach, but the beloved paper that carried her column about plastic bags is delivered daily in one.

Edith Hope Fine

Encinitas

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