EDITOR:

60 Minutes did a piece on plastic and what it is doing to our world. I saw the original and then a couple of weeks ago they repeated it. I am not a climate change person. I don’t agree with California and other states that want to ban plastic straws and plastic grocery bags. However, we should use paper whenever possible. 60 Minutes went to Midway Island. About as far from civilization as you can get. The beaches were littered with dead birds that had eaten so much plastic that they couldn’t get nourishment. They basically starved to death.

One of the issues that I don’t think they stressed enough was the way plastics break down. Plastic containers; bags, fast food, bottles, etc., break down to small fragments that float just under the surface of the oceans. Birds and fish think it is food and it just sits in the stomachs. They pulled pieces of plastic out of the bellies of the birds. It was enough to make you sick.

A certain part of the world doesn’t care. There were pictures of rivers in Vietnam, and Southeast Asia, that were clogged with trash, mostly plastic.

If everyone thought about it and re-cycled, re-used, or just threw the stuff away, we might be able to make a difference in our neck of the woods.

One candle by itself puts out very little light, but if everyone lit just one little candle…

Tom Grant

Escanaba