Readers React: Plastic bag ban a boon for the environment or environmentalists?

To the editor: I am glad to hear that I am not alone: I echo 87-year-old Georgia Anderson’s complaint that we consumers should not have to pay a merchant for a bag to carry out the purchases we make from a store. (“Statewide ban on plastic grocery bags has broad support, poll shows,” Nov. 1)

Way back, before plastic bags were ever even used, stores provided only paper bags, the cost for which was included in the food and other items for sale. No one was ever asked to pay a separate charge. And when plastic bags were still acceptable, the stores must have had to pay something for them.

Now that the stores will no longer provide plastic bags, why charge shoppers at least 10 cents for a paper bag? For most people, me included, it is not the 10 cents that counts, it is the concept of customer service and building a loyal client base.

Being charged for a bag feels like a cheap insult.

Liz Sherwin, Los Angeles

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To the editor: In my opinion, the plastic bag ban is one of the most stupid, petty things that the state has ever done. I can go into the aisle in a supermarket and buy all the plastic bags I want, but the checker cannot give me a plastic bag for me to carry my plastic bags.

In reality, plastic bags do not cause much trouble in the environment. Even if they did, why not just make them biodegradable? Plastic bags are one of the few things still manufactured in California, so why put these companies out of business?

This is a boon to the markets what will charge us for paper bags and a way for the environmentalists to make themselves feel like they have “done something.”

Dafni Black, Culver City

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