To the editor: Both during the pandemic and more recently while recovering from surgery, I had to rely on home delivery to get my groceries, leading me to accumulate those thick plastic bags. (“Yes, California should ban plastic shopping bags — again,” editorial, August 5)
As your editorial points out, you couldn't throw them in the recycling bin (it wouldn't make sense to do so) and you couldn't reuse them in the store, because delivery requires new bags for each order.
What I did with the pandemic-era bags (and what I will do with the last ones I have when I go out again) is donate them to a local food bank. Bags are always needed, and those who rely on food banks are probably more likely to reuse them many times before they become unusable (that’s the mindset of anyone forced to make do with fewer resources).
I urge everyone who has a pile of these thick plastic bags to do the same. Recycling is important, and so is reusing, but too often we forget to reuse.
Kymberleigh Richards, Van Nuys
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To the editor: Thank you for highlighting the absurdity of our current policies regarding “recyclable plastic bags.”
How could the legislators who passed the ban in California in 2016 have overlooked the small detail that the new thicker bags are not recyclable? Add to that the fact that consumers are charged 10 cents per bag, which we were led to believe was intended to help recycling initiatives. Instead, the money is profit for the retailers.
This is either incompetence or collusion, and the only winners are the plastic manufacturers and grocery stores that are forced to pay less. Let's keep this issue under scrutiny.
Karen Galas, Palos Verdes Estates
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To the editor: California passed a ban on single-use plastic shopping bags in 2016, but loopholes have squandered eight years of environmental progress. Plastic bags continue to float dangerously on our roads on windy days, on our beaches and everywhere else.
We need the California Legislature to pass Assembly Bill 2236 and Senate Bill 1053, identical bills that would require stores to provide only paper bags made from at least 50% recycled material. We passed a ban on single-use plastic bags in 2016 for good reason, but the state still needs to address sustainability issues.
Let's hope our lawmakers move forward with our environmental standards that keep California beautiful and our landfills less congested.
Jonathan Light, Laguna Niguel
