For single-use plastic bags, the end is near

Dear Editor: I’ve just come back from five years abroad and wanted to address the proposed plastic bag ban in Ulster County. To antiban citizens: It’s going to happen whether you want it to or not. Plastic bags are all but banned everywhere else in the world; where they aren’t, they’re on the way out. Usually this isn’t a complete ban, but a 5-cent charge. It really isn’t a big deal. The biggest culture shock for me returning home has been America’s dependency on single-use plastic.

I want to address some concerns I’ve read in the Freeman regarding the ban:

1. “It is unfair to low-income people.” I promise you, low-income people in South Wales are not lamenting the days before the government took plastic bags away.

2. “Using tote bags is unsanitary.” Wash them.

3. “Plastic bags only make up a small percentage of our litter problem.” America’s dependency on single-use plastic is obscene, and any change is necessary.

4. “The government shouldn’t control what bags I use.” The government imposes guidelines on literally every product you use, and fussing about it isn’t going to change that.

I’m an archaeologist, and I spend a lot of time digging in the dirt. Troweling through layers of time, I have seen, first hand, the exponential increase in plastic usage, and it isn’t pretty. Plastic takes a long time to degrade. It doesn’t just pollute our water and land, it pollutes our bodies, too.

Pardis Zahedi, Port Ewen