Just reuse them, instead of passing a new law | Letters | Jan. 12

Published 3:38 pm Thursday, January 12, 2012

You know I really don’t understand the need to regulate this. I need plastic bags, so do you.

First of all if you take away my source of bathroom garbage bags and lunch bags, I will have to go buy them. There are certain things that I will never use a cloth bag for. The type that I will have to buy to replace the outlawed ones are not as biodegradable as the thin, light sensitive ones used by the grocery stores.

Glad or other brand name garbage bags are made of thicker and more durable plastic because they have an obligation to not make a thin bag that will rip at the slightest pressure. These other, more durable bags, will cause an even greater problem than we have now.

In the last 30 years I have never thrown away a bag that did not have a big hole in it. I reuse them for many things – lunches that may leak, bathroom waste baskets, packing material, insulation for food, hand-me-down clothing, stuff to give away, etc.

As soon as sunlight hits these thin bags the biodegrading process begins. The real problem is that some people are lazy, wasteful and have no imagination on how to reuse what they already have. You can’t regulate that.

With each new law a percentage of people who want someone to save them from themselves – wrecking it for the rest of us. I designate a place for these bags and I use them up at about the same ratio as I get them.

Marion Dhatt, Bainbridge Island