To the Editor:
Thank you Andrew Koenigsberg of Westborough for your very reasonable response concerning plastic bags (“Plastic in environment is a pollutant like other unregulated waste,” Community Advocate, June 7, 2019). I too agree that too much of what we use ends up in the environment and not in the recycle bin or the trash. I would question the comment that the bags in question end up at the bottom of the Mariana Trench since HDPE as a density of .96 that of water, like Ivory soap, “it floats.” It would end up on the beach.
We must find a way to convince people to recycle and not just throw scrap out the window.
Back on the economic side – take a walk around any supermarket, most of the packaging on the shelves is plastic. Every candy bar, snack food, lunch meat, soda, all the little packs of mustard, ketchup, mayo, frozen foods, cheese etc. is plastic. Why? Because it works and is less expensive that what it replaced. In many cases this required new or modification to packaging lines.
The mantra of the industry for years has been “Reduce Reuse Recycle”.
Maybe between us, we can make a small change in people’s habits.
Bill Halter
Northborough
