Letters To The Editor: "East Palestine" And "Plastic Bags Are Expensive"

East Palestine Thoughts

Dear Readers,

How safe are you if you live; say 20 ft. from the railroad tracks? Well, pretty safe if the trains have emergency braking systems. Not at all safe if they do not!

When a train car stops because it blew a brake or for any other reason, the whole train stops. Then the engineer walks the entire length of the train till he finds the problem. In East Palestine, the train did not stop when the cab stopped. So, don't we need to know if the trains that go through Lakewood next to a school, Giant Eagle, and lots of homes have an emergency braking system? Just a thought.

A concerned Lakewood citizen, Pat Cichowicz

Free Plastic Bags Are Expensive

FREE plastic bags are an illusion. The merchants pay for them and then pass the cost onto their customers through higher pices. If a grocer wants to buy my good will, I'd much prefer a discount on eggs. FREE plastic bags take away con- sumers' actual freedom. They force us to subsidize the plastics industry whether we want to or not.

Lakewood is definitely polluted with plastic bags. I have several hundred tucked away in my house alone. Although I reuse them for garbage and such, com- mon sense dictates that the volume of my garbage is less than the volume of my original purchases. There is no realistic market out there to recycle the excess.

If you're concerned about sanitation, tote bags can be washed. You have the freedom of control. How do you know that "pristine" plastic bag didn't come out of a store room contaminated with cockroaches and mouse pee? (I don't really think this is a problem, but people keep bringing it up...)

Of course, bags are a necessary evil. People need to organize their purchases. I agree that an all-out ban on plastic bags may have been over-kill, but why should they ever be free? People will conserve when it is in their interest to do so.

Donna Childs, Lakewood Resident