Here comes the Bag Man

On New Years Day, we bring you another installment of our series focusing on personal resolutions Sustainable Newton Board members are making for 2020 to increase our efforts to live more sustainable lives with less negative impact on our planet and those who will inhabit it when we are gone.

By Julius J. Hayden, Sustainable Newton Treasurer & Lois Upham, Sustainable Newton Board Member

As some of my friends know, I have been on a crusade to raise awareness of the problems caused by plastic bags used to collect and transport our purchases.  I am an old man and don’t mind playing the “ole’ geezer” card to make a point and perhaps change a mind -- if not, then raise awareness -- of the dangers of plastic endemic in our environment. 

Almost without exception, I ask every clerk and bagger if they can tell me the source material for plastic bags. (It's petroleum or natural gas.)  I go on to tell them, especially the young ones, that they will someday tell their grandchildren “we used to give away plastic bags by the handful, and that if they just had some of those bags now, how lucky they would be.” (Shades of back-to-the-future.)

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