Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Bag vote sent wrong message


Shame on the Blaine County School District, shame on the Wood River High School, shame on this newspaper and shame on all those who did not vote yes to ban the plastic bags in Hailey. By not supporting the students in our valley who are simply doing their best to improve the state of the world that we as "adults" have so carelessly trashed, you are sending a very clear and sad message to them. They are definitely hearing that we don't care about the world that we have messed up and are handing them.

Plastic grocery bags are a convenience, but one we are using without thinking of the consequences. Before plastic grocery bags, people put fruit and vegetable scraps in a compost pile and wrapped household garbage in newspaper for disposal. Europeans and others around the world have used cloth shopping bags for decades and no one seems to be suffering from it. Yes, fabric bags get dirty and grungy, but so do your clothes. Washing your dirty cloth grocery bag with your dirty clothes is a pretty easy solution to solve that problem.

And exactly how much of an increase in our grocery bills would happen if we didn't use plastic bags to haul our haul from the market? It's not a choice between just plastic and paper. Why isn't the option of using cloth bags in the discussion? Old dogs can learn new tricks and we need to train ourselves to use cloth bags whenever possible.

I encourage the brave students at Wood River High School to continue their efforts to educate us about what we are doing to the planet that they are inheriting from us and to continue their efforts to ban the plastic grocery bags. And thanks to all of you who voted to ban those bags.

Margaret Stewart

Ketchum

Editor's note: The Idaho Mountain Express editorial board did not support a "yes" vote on the proposed ban of single-use plastic bags in Hailey. However, the board did encourage more recycling of plastic bags and other efforts to reduce waste. In the weeks leading up to the vote, the newspaper published several in-depth news stories exploring both sides of the issue.




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