Plastic bag use

I appreciated the BDN’s July 17 editorial, “Bottle Bill Update,” lauding the success of Maine’s 30-year-old bottle bill and suggesting that it bodes well for a user fee on plastic grocery bags. However, it seems to me the BDN might try practicing what it preaches by reducing the use of plastic bags for delivering newspapers. I have called the circulation department repeatedly over the years to discourage the use of plastic bags in delivering our paper, with limited success-even though I was told the bags represent a huge expense for the paper (which I assume we subscribers pay for).

There is simply no need for a paper to be bagged and placed between doors, as is the case with our delivery. Perhaps the BDN could alert its customers to the high cost of plastic bags and make their use optional.

Better yet, how about a surcharge for those who insist on their papers being bagged?

Plastic bags are made from petroleum. Reducing their use will decrease our demand for oil. While some may claim that we should simply recycle them, less than 1 percent of plastic bags are actually recycled. Besides, it costs more to recycle a bag than to make a new one-not much of an incentive.

Leslie Hudson

Orono