To the editor: If you are like me, you can come up with a million reasons why you are unable to devote time, energy or money to help save our planet. We work full time, have a family and not much spare change to go around. Yet there is a very simple, inexpensive, and effective way to help reduce your negative impact on our environment n the use of reusable shopping bags. I am sure most of you shop at either the local A & P or ShopRite for your weekly groceries. Most of us do not think twice about the plastic bags we use to bring our groceries home. After all, they are “free” and convenient. We can just throw them away once the groceries are put away. However, we should be thinking twice or even three times for that matter before we throw them into the trash. This simple bag is causing havoc with our environment in a multitude of ways. The cost of “free” is a heavy price. Since their introduction into our lives in 1977, the world is now using about 500 billion bags a year. That breaks down to one million bags per minute. Yes, that’s right, one million plastic bags per minute the world over. The United States alone uses 100 billion of these bags annually. Most of these bags wind up in our landfills. According to The Wall St. Journal, only 1n3 percent of these bags are recycled. Plastic bags do not biodegrade. Instead, they photodegrade meaning that exposure to light only breaks them down into smaller particles. Photodegradation can take 10-20 years. They never go away completely. These particles then go on to contaminate soil and waterways. In the meantime, many of them are blown into the air or are carried into our waterways. This is especially dangerous for many marine animals who ingest them after mistaking them for food. The National Geographic Institute estimates that over 100,000 marine animal deaths per year are directly related to ingestion of plastic bags. When ingested, these bags block the digestive system and cause starvation. Smaller particles act like sponges and absorb concentrated chemicals that can poison marine life. They wrap around living corals, suffocating and killing them. Plastic bags are also used as rafts for alien species to travel long distances across oceans where they can become invasive and upset fragile ecosystems. On land, animals like goats and cows ingest them while foraging for food. They can also find their way into sewer pipes and drains, clogging them causing flooding and stagnant, water-borne diseases. There are other important reasons to replace plastic bags with reusable bags. These bags are made from the waste products of oil refining. To manufacture 100 billion bags (the amount used by the U.S. annually), 12 million barrels of oil are required. This further increases our dependency on foreign oil. The production and recycling processes contribute to air and water pollution and global warming. Plastic products that enter the waste stream put a tax burden on our local communities in the collection, hauling and landfill disposal of these products. An average family will accumulate 60 bags in only four visits to the grocery store. The use of one reusable bag has the potential of eliminating 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime. Imagine what we can do in our community. Reusable bags can be bought at the A & P or ShopRite for approximately one dollar. You will not be required to give of your time or energy, just a very small financial investment and you will be making a major contribution to making the world a better place. Deirdre Wexler Hewitt