So now multiple communities are considering instituting laws requiring retailers to charge for plastic bags (“Plastic bag bans and fees catching on in Maine,” Oct. 11).

So now we can leave our big homes with our big families in our big vehicles and buy food at the supermarket that has been shipped halfway around the world and put it in reusable bags and pat ourselves on the back for being good environmentalists.

It’s not the bags, people, it’s the lifestyle!

And since supermarkets stopped using paper bags, I have had to buy plastic bags for my kitchen garbage, and my town requires me to buy plastic garbage bags for curbside trash.

So if you really want to make a difference, how about this?

• Institute a national 55-mph speed limit.

• Ban drive-through windows at banks and food establishments to cut out unnecessary idling.

• Require kids to gather at neighborhood bus stops to eliminate the stop-and-go of buses at each and every driveway.

These are easily implemented, common-sense changes that would result in little real inconvenience but very real reductions in fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. But plastic bags get all the ink.

Kurt Woltersdorf

Sanford