Letter to the Editor: Let’s Quit Using Plastic Bags

By FRAN STOVAL
Los Alamos

I joined a group named the Female Brainpower Initiative (FBI) that meets on the second Tuesday of each month, from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at the Betty Ehart Senior Center in Los Alamos. Our goal is to bring women together to brain-storm ideas of improvements we would like to see. The issues can be person or world changing.

I had just watched a documentary on TV called “Bag it” by Jeb Berrier. Jeb has made a pledge to stop using plastic bags at the grocery store. I took this idea to the group and after brainstorming; we came up with many ways to address this. 

First it was decided we should each start on a personal level and stop using the store’s single-use plastic bags. Because I am an artist, I wanted to make the public aware of the problem in a visual way. I have been posting a different flyer every month, with the help of the Senior Center’s RSVP group to distribute them to all the local bulletin boards.

On Aug 28, the City of Santa Fe passed a ban on single-use bags. When my first flyer caught the attention of LA’s Environmental Sustainability Board, they were very excited to see a push to remove plastic bags from town.

We were able to obtain a copy of Santa Fe’s ordinance and JJ Maier rewrote it so that it could be easily used by our County Council. We have also started a petition. 

When we approached Smith’s and Metzger’s about voluntarily banning the bags, they both were supportive of the idea. It is just a matter of time when these bags will be outlawed nationwide. Wouldn’t it be great, as a community of progressive, thinking people, to bring our own bags to the store (or use the alternative new bio-degradable ones the stores expect to offer) without having to change our laws like Santa Fe did in order to make this an environmentally safe, bag-free community?

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