by Diane Wilson
This month, Ontario stores started charging five cents per shopping bag, which sounds like no big deal. The shopping bag brouhaha has been happening at the same time as financially challenged newspapers are being faced into oblivion or into cyberspace. Back in March The New York Times showed the sorry faces of the folks at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has become an Internet-only news source -- the largest American newspaper to do so. The paper version was completely ditched.
Don't get me wrong -- I don't want plastic bags in rivers and streams. No! And I am hardly afraid of the Internet. I love The Huffington Post and other online sources. But, the physical read of a good newspaper is different from surfing -- it is reading.
But why couldn't they use recyclable paper that won't be going to newspapers for store bags? As it currently stands, you see foolish looking consumers leaving shops arms full of naked groceries: Mr. Clean, meat, lettuce and a chocolate cake. One shopkeeper tells me that shoplifting is on the rise. We have all purchased the necessary linen sacks to carry our loads, but they will get dirty, and I do not find them ergonomically friendly. And then, if you want to line your compost bin with a plastic bag, you now have to fork out a few dollars for a bunch of plastic bags. That is downright nuts.
Clearly, we are going to have to think longer and harder about what we take away from our way of living and the implications. First, in a time challenged world, we are spending too much of it on weird garbage related matters. And second, newspapers have always been a way of life, a culture. We always knew that if they were good for nothing else, they were good for wrapping food and waste. And so we have come to a new point in time. Should you wish to wrap a piece of fish, simply stick it between the keyboard and the screen and close the laptop.
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