Paper Bags

Students at St. Andrew's United Methodist Day School in Edgewater are taking on a new environmental issue in their quest to receive a "Green School" designation from the Maryland Department of Education. This year, they began to sell reusable grocery bags to discourage shoppers from using plastic ones. Environmentalists say plastic bags cause more pollution when they wind up in landfills and are washed into the Chesapeake Bay. Next week, the Annapolis city council is expected to decide whether to ban retailers from using plastic bags.

Baltimore will order thousands more recycling bins and will make them available in three weeks, officials in Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration said yesterday. Thousands of people stood in line for hours over the weekend to buy the recycling bins, which can be used for the city's new single-stream recycling program. The city quickly ran out of its 10,000-bin supply. "This was actually a good thing," Dixon said yesterday. "It was a problem that was a good problem. I know some people were frustrated about the long lines, but what I heard is that because we're going to single-stream recycling, people have now decided to recycle."

Just when plastic bags seemed to have won the contest for customer preference against their chief competitor, paper, a movement has sprung up in Maryland and around the country to disqualify the petroleum-based plastics on environmental grounds. Indeed, those ubiquitous flimsy shopping sacks are a scourge on the landscape, particularly in waterfront communities such as Annapolis and Baltimore, where officials are considering banning plastic bags largely because of the impact on waterfowl and marine life.

Antietam illuminationAntietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg will be aglow with 23,110 luminaires - candles in paper bags - Saturday evening, each candle honoring a killed, wounded or lost-in-action Civil War soldier. After the candles are lighted by 976 volunteers, visitors can drive along the 4.5-mile route of the illuminated memorial. The drive takes approximately one hour, but be prepared to wait - according to the organizers, each year there's a long lineup.jTC Hours for the 10th annual illumination are 6 p.m. to midnight.

Baltimore rang in its bicentennial year last night with revelry, singing, dancing and prayer, capped by an Inner Harbor fireworks spectacle."Oh, we're going to party tonight!" yelled Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke at the Harborplace Amphitheatre, just before he counted down the final 10 seconds to midnight.Then, fireworks erupted from two barges and from the tops of the World Trade Center, the Maryland Science Center and Federal Hill against the backdrop of a luminous half-moon hanging low over East Baltimore.

IT WAS A LATE winter school day 38 years ago when Sister Marie Therese announced that as part of Lenten almsgiving, she was naming class leaders for the Bishops' Relief Fund. Before long, I realized that I was in charge of an hourlong charity fund-raiser. I was also 9 years old.I counted my blessings. My designated event was not to be the first of several held within the classroom. The kickoff event of these charity sessions was a bake sale headed by my friend, Danny Gonzalez, whose mother was a talented and resourceful baker.

Plastic bags reduce consumer pollutionI consider myself an environmentalist and want to do all I can to leave a nice environment for future generations.That is one of the reasons I am proud to work in the plastics industry and why I ask for plastic bags at the grocery store. Unfortunately, some people do not seem to fully appreciate the environmental benefits of plastic products.For example, plastic grocery bags do an outstanding job and they have been designed to be thin and lightweight.

One advantage of a multi-cultural approach to the arts is that it shows people of other than the dominant culture that they, too, have a rich heritage and a vital place in the world. But another, perhaps more important, advantage is that it shows us all our common humanity. That message shines through at the University of Maryland Baltimore County's current exhibit, "View from Baltimore to Washington."Curator Osvaldo Mesa has chosen installations as the medium of this excellent edition of UMBC's annual regional exhibit.

So, the second half if what goes up to be an abbreviated season is under way, and it's time to separate the wheat from the chaff, the rubber from the road, the ... well, you get the drift. Which teams have placed themselves in good shape for the post-season? Which squads have been disappointments? "Winners and Losers" scans the landscape.TEAM .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ... .. .. .. .COMMENT .. ... .. .. .Atlanta.. .. .LOSERS. .. .. Free agency and three years of postseasonBraves .. .. .. .. .. .. .. disappointments may break up the old gangNew York .. ... .. .. .. .. Riding high now, but how long beforeYankees .. .. .. .. .. .. . George wigs out and fires everybody,.

Bag it, please, is the message for county residents who live along the Poplar Trail, when they prepare cans, bottles and plastic for their once a week recycling collection.The Poplar Trail includes all of Howard County west of Route 29, with the exception of most Columbia neighborhoods.Howard County is asking that the 12,000 households along the Poplar Trail join the county-wide phase-in of recyclable cans, bottles and plastics in clear plastic bags instead of placing materials loose in blue plastic bins.

Education, not fee, is the answer for shopping bags It is not surprising that the proposal to charge twenty-five cents a bag for plastic and paper shopping bags ran into a storm of opposition in the City Council because of the burden the surcharge would place on poor and elderly shoppers in Baltimore ("A united cry of 'no' to shopping bag fee," June 17). Nevertheless, the catastrophe that both plastic and paper bags pose to the world's environment is huge, and people all over the world are seeking solutions.

Sure, you could hoard your Thanksgiving leftovers and just eat them yourself over the next couple of weeks. But is that really in the spirit of the season? Mr. Flip says you need to share them. Here's his idea: Take those leftovers, put them in paper bags - Mr. Flip has plenty you could use - and give them to some people who could truly benefit from turkey, stuffing or sweet potatoes. Of course, Mr. Flip has suggestions: * Sports Illustrated swimsuit models. Yes, they are lovely women, but so skinny.

Baltimore's pawnbrokers and dealers in secondhand merchandise will to have e-mail the city Police Department daily photographs and descriptions of the jewelry, televisions and other items they receive to comply with a law passed yesterday evening by the City Council. The new electronic dispatches will enable detectives to create a database of pawned wares in the city that they hope will help them solve more thefts. Currently the city's 37 pawnshops and 78 secondhand dealers mail paper copies of those reports to detectives.

Legislation that would have made Baltimore the second city in the nation to ban plastic bags at grocery stores and retail chains was killed by the full City Council last night. Intended to keep plastic bags from clogging waterways, the proposal would have required large stores - those with $500,000 or more in gross revenue - to bag groceries in paper or reusable bags only. Days after it was approved by a committee, the full council voted against the proposal, 11-3. "I know there has been a lot of pressure on this bill," City Councilman James B. Kraft, the lead sponsor, said of opponents who have lobbied against the measure.

Baltimore moved a step closer to becoming one of the first cities in the nation to ban plastic bags at grocery stores and retail chains after the proposal skidded through a critical City Council committee vote yesterday. Intended to keep the hard-to-degrade sacks from winding up in waterways or caught on tree branches, the proposal would require large stores to bag groceries in paper or reusable bags only. San Francisco became the first city in the country to enact a partial ban on certain types of plastic bags last year.

For more and more people, the supermarket checkout line question "Paper or plastic?" simply isn't relevant. It's no longer a matter of a few tree huggers taking their hemp bags shopping with them to save the world. So many good-looking reusable market bags are available these days, you can buy them and use them as a fashion accessory - and help save the world. Supermarkets sell inexpensive market bags with logos on them, but these days you'll also find more decorative ones at earth-friendly home accessories stores like Bluehouse in Fells Point or Earth Alley in Hampden.

Baltimore will order thousands more recycling bins and will make them available in three weeks, officials in Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration said yesterday. Thousands of people stood in line for hours over the weekend to buy the recycling bins, which can be used for the city's new single-stream recycling program. The city quickly ran out of its 10,000-bin supply. "This was actually a good thing," Dixon said yesterday. "It was a problem that was a good problem. I know some people were frustrated about the long lines, but what I heard is that because we're going to single-stream recycling, people have now decided to recycle."

I am at the supermarket checkout counter with 10 cans of gourmet dog food for the old dog in my house, who only goes first class, when the woman at the register says: "Plastic OK?" She's asking, of course, if she can put the dog food in one of those blue plastic bags that won't decompose in a million years and might blow into the bay and choke the waterfowl and marine life. Outside, the wind is blowing like it's the end of the world, and there are blue plastic bags blowing up and down York Road.

The night before San Francisco's first-in-the-nation ban on plastic bags took effect last week, the Annapolis City Council rejected a bid to make it bag-free city No. 2. The Annapolis ban was not killed outright, but was smothered to death with a weaker option calling for a study of the effectiveness of voluntary reusable bags and the city's approach to broader environmental issues. As a practical matter, opponents of the ban, which included Mayor Ellen O. Moyer and most of the business community, were correct that it was too extreme at this juncture and would have encouraged the use of paper bags, which pose their own environmental and energy concerns.

Students at St. Andrew's United Methodist Day School in Edgewater are taking on a new environmental issue in their quest to receive a "Green School" designation from the Maryland Department of Education. This year, they began to sell reusable grocery bags to discourage shoppers from using plastic ones. Environmentalists say plastic bags cause more pollution when they wind up in landfills and are washed into the Chesapeake Bay. Next week, the Annapolis city council is expected to decide whether to ban retailers from using plastic bags.