There is much talk and letter writing these days regarding recycling and minimizing the use of plastics. There is one thing that nearly everyone does that could be eliminated and which would reduce a great deal of plastic in our landfills. This one thing is the plastic kitchen garbage bag.
Based on what I see in the dumpster outside my apartment house it appears to me nearly everyone uses a plastic garbage bag in their kitchen. Here is my suggestion: Simply stop using a plastic kitchen garbage bag. Instead put the kitchen garbage directly into a kitchen garbage container. I have been doing this for over eight years now.
By using a plastic kitchen garbage bag we are intent on keeping our kitchen as clean as possible and with the least effort. But in doing this we are placing a great burden on our Mother Earth. The information I have tells me that the millions of plastic kitchen garbage bags in our landfills will take about 800 years to kind-of decompose. And that decomposition will turn the plastic bags into a kind of mush not entirely decomposed. In addition the contents, such as vegetable and animal matter, will not decompose quickly because the decomposition requires aerobic bacteria, which means the bacteria need air (i.e. oxygen). The plastic bag prevents the bacteria from doing what God has designed them to do.
And lastly, when I was growing up there were no plastic kitchen garbage bags. Sometimes nothing is new but what has been forgotten.
William Patrick Daspit
Snohomish
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