Recycle plastic bags

EDITOR: Sonoma County appears to be considering banning disposable plastic shopping bags while allowing paper and customer-provided bags ("County on track for plastic bag ban," Thursday). Creating an administrative body to enforce the ban has been considered necessary, including a schedule of escalating fines.

Two reasons given for establishing the bag regulation program are to decrease landfill waste and to decrease litter. Decreasing both should be considered important to maintaining our environment.

Instead of creating another bureaucracy, why don't we advocate more strongly the recycling of shopping bags along with the myriad of plastic containers that we purchase and put in them? The plastic bags are marked as being recyclable and should be placed in the recycle bin along with other recyclable plastics.

We should increase understanding of the bag recycling process and stop sending bags to the landfill. The consequences are dire: Each of us taking our own bags to markets (backpacks are usually not allowed) in whatever condition and whatever number we desire. Let's recycle and, of course, don't litter.

DANA ZIMMERMAN

Guerneville