Recently, the Herald said that the argument about the plastic-bag surcharge boiled down to one side citing science and solutions while the other asserted that anything short of free, unlimited, plastic bags for all amounted to a dangerous assault on personal freedom. And that is how a rational discussion of environmental problems and remedies degenerated into an endless and rancorous right vs. left confrontation.

A review of the facts shows tens of millions of these bags in the waste stream, many of which find their way to rivers, lakes and, eventually, oceans. The Pacific Ocean now sports a plastic garbage patch that is twice the surface area of the United States and hundreds of feet deep. It grows daily. The Great Lakes are being poisoned by plastic beads, many of which are too small to be seen with the naked eye; the abrasive beads from hand sanitizers are showing up in the fish we eat.

We are rapidly poisoning our ecosphere with plastics that never really go away. The minor 10-cent charge per plastic bag is a reminder that we haven’t really been paying the true costs for our use of many toxic products.

The solution for anyone concerned with the issues (both of plastic disposal and personal freedom) is to bring your own, reusable bags to shop. Our family has been using the canvas-like bags for years without any ill effects on our health. A $1 investment buys a bag that can last a decade or so – 10 cents per year! And while the reusable bag is in use, hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags will not be released into the wild!

A win-win instead of a whine-whine.

Larry A. Bollinger

Durango