Your new Sunday Source section column on plastic bag and food container abuses (“The price of plastic,” April 27) addresses an important topic we all should be concerned about. Our beautiful Maine landscape bears witness to the careless disposal of these hard-to-recycle items, which seem to be increasing at an alarming rate.

In the case of plastic bags, Hannaford, Shaws and the IGAs could do us all a favor by helping educate their own employees on the virtual plethora of these bags they force on us at the checkout counter.

It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I am in the middle of a “Saturday Night Live” skit. A separate bag for your eggs (sorry, it doesn’t prevent them from breaking), meat products, produce, paper goods, milk, soda, wine, etc. You stumble out of the store loaded down with so much plastic you look like the balloon man at the circus.

How about a little common sense here? We don’t need a separate bag for each item.

A decade ago, I was made to feel like I was killing trees because I requested paper bags. Now it has become pretty evident that I am still harming the environment by using the alternative they humbled me into using at the time.

In the words of a great American: It’s like deja vu all over again.

Jim Brown

Edgecomb

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