We gain ground here, but we lose it there

To the editor:

Just when we’re getting somewhere with the plastic grocery bag challenge, along comes another.

For several months now our newspapers have arrived polybagged. This makes sense in rain or snow, so let’s give the carriers a break on that one.

What irks me is poly-bagged magazines. Several months ago, Canada Post, copying the U.S. postal service – or was it the other way around? – bowing to pressure from advertisers, decreed that all magazines containing loose inserts, ads and such, must be poly-bagged at the source, to prevent spillage.

Our house alone subscribes to half a dozen magazines, some monthly, some quar- terly. Together they add up to scores of bags for a single household. Some we reuse but most go to be recycled (which itself takes fossil fuel).

Multiply our bags by millions and good-bye any progress on grocery bags.

Only one Canadian magazine I know of has fought back. The United Church Observer, a monthly, has gone to kraft paper instead. Plastic or paper, it costs them money, so they’re charging an extra $5 a year.

We don’t mind.

At least trees are renewable, and paper doesn’t poison land or sea. Small price to pay for a cleaner, greener planet.

Better yet, why not require all mag ads to be bound in the same way?

Gary L. Saunders, Clifton