Bitten by banning bug because plastics are bad for environment
Re: Ed Aitken’s response to my Dec. 22 letter to the Citizen’s editor demanding a Cowichan-wide plastic shopping-bag ban:
Thanks so much Ed for continuing the important, timely dialogue about banning these shameful shopping bags in our lovely Valley.
Decades before Victoria and Montreal announced a plastic-bag ban, I indeed was “bitten by the banning bug” after learning how ecologically dangerous all plastics are, not just shopping bags. In fact, scientists recently reported all plastics ever made are still with us in solid or gaseous form. Sadly, our CVRD no longer recycles our plastic bags nor many other plastic wastes. Instead, they’re largely and expensively shipped to a Washington State landfill as trash.
I’ve used cloth bags for years and avoid plastics in general. I also urge our regional board to collect and store our many plastics until a profitable market surfaces. Meanwhile, at least those bags and other plastic stuff could be out of our precious environment.
And Ed, you’re right; most every item in stores is sold inside plastic because that packaging is still cheap. But until we consumers demand politicians and store owners to ban plastics, those terrible shopping bags will remain. Ed, I’m most glad you are doing your part to reduce and reuse plastic bags. That’s also a priority in my household for which I do shop, sickened by all the plastics lining nearly every aisle.
Peter W. Rusland
Duncan