Plastic Bags

Littering in Annapolis could wind up costing you $250 under a proposal from the city's mayor. City Council members are expected to vote at their next meeting, on Dec. 10, whether the littering fine should be increased from $100 to $250. Mayor Ellen O. Moyer expects the proposal to pass. "We have hosts of public servants and volunteers that spend their time doing just that - picking up the trash," Moyer said. "People's time and taxpayer dollars are important. We want a clean city." A public hearing on increasing the fine was held Monday, but no one spoke about the measure.

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.

Plastic bags have been in the air and in the news. Thursday morning, I braved the cold weather to snag "a floater," a blue plastic grocery bag carried into the backyard by springtime winds. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, some plastic bags have been banned. Citing the burden the bags put on the environment, the dangers they pose to marine life and the general nuisance factor, the city's Board of Supervisors recently voted to outlaw plastic bags at the checkouts of large supermarkets and chain pharmacies.

Annapolis Ban considered on plastic bags That standard checkout-line question, "Plastic or paper?" could be rendered moot in the state capital and Baltimore under ordinances being proposed to reduce litter and protect the environment. The Baltimore and Annapolis city councils are scheduled to hear legislation that would outlaw common plastic bags at grocery stores, pharmacies, clothing shops and other retailers. Baltimore and Annapolis are joining a handful of cities questioning the wisdom of widespread use of the bags.

A Taneytown couple were arrested late Wednesday during a raid at their home, where police said they found a pound of marijuana hidden in the back yard.Rodney A. Rill Sr., 30, and Theresa A. Rill, 26, were held at the Carroll County Detention Center in Westminster until each posted bail of $25,000 yesterday, court records show.Police said the Rills were at their home in the 100 block of O'Hagan Drive with their three children when the Sheriff's Drug Strike Force and Taneytown officers arrived at 10: 45 p.m.The bulk of the suspected marijuana was wrapped in individual heat-sealed plastic bags and was partially buried in yard waste next to a tool shed, police said.

A man charged with killing five people -- most of whom were suffocated during robberies of drug money -- had been paroled shortly before the slayings began in 1993 and had developed a reputation as a feared gunman, police said yesterday."

Next time you travel, try using plastic dry-cleaner bags to keep clothes from getting crushed. Cut the bags into shapes suitable for blouses, sweaters, etc. Then fold the clothes over the bags. You'll find they trap enough air to prevent wrinkling. And pack extras; they come in handy for storing wet bathing suits and dirty laundry.* In some cases -- with knit pants, for example -- it's easier to roll the pants and plastic together. This takes up less room and is a guarantee against creases.

Now, let's talk about something really important -- the number of plastic shopping bags blowing through the Patapsco Drainage Basin. Have you seen them this year? They're swarming. From Glenelg to Glen Burnie, from Pylesville to Pikesville, from Arbutus to Arcadia, from Pigtown to Joppatowne, from Hereford to Thereford -- you get the idea -- these bags cling to tree limbs and chain-link fences. They're a menace. If he were not dead, Ed Wood would make a movie about them.We had a long winter, see, with lots of snow-panic shopping; too many people making too many trips to the supermarket equals too many blue bags.

NOTHING MARKS THE start of the holiday season like the crafts shows and open houses at churches and shops in northwest Carroll County.In New Windsor, the women at St. Paul's Methodist Church have ushered in the season for the past 30 years with the sale of mincemeat and crafts. This year is no different. Their fair, Mincemeat and More, will be from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 9 at the church on Main Street.Formerly known as Early Bird Crafts Fair, the women decided to change the name to Mincemeat and More to reflect the origins of this major fund-raiser for the church.

Not too long ago, the city fathers of Paris, France, ordered dog-owning citizens to clean up after their pets. Paris is a city with lots of dogs, so the problem is everywhere underfoot, so to speak.The Parisian dog owners responded to the order with much the same alacrity as the ocean's waves did to King Canute. Such are the French: normally slavish to authority, but now and then rebellious.Baltimore also has a lot of dogs. Baltimore also has an ordinance similar to the Parisian one. But Baltimoreans, in this regard, have little of the rebel's spirit.

I need some help to break the disposable bag habit. I know those ubiquitous plastic grocery bags are a major source of litter on land and sea and that such debris can poison fish and choke wildlife. I've cringed at bags stuck in trees along the highway and twisted in tall grasses that line tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. Yet, a reusable cloth bag languishes in the back seat of my car, forgotten until it mocks me when I return from shopping carrying more of the wretched plastic things.

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.

It's laudable that the Baltimore City Council wants to encourage residents to cut down on their use of plastic and paper bags at grocery stores, but slapping a 25-cent fee on every bag - possibly the highest levy in the country - isn't the right way to go. It smacks of a tax on the poor in the middle of a recession. The city should, by all means, find ways to encourage residents to take reusable bags to the grocery store, perhaps by working with merchants to make them readily available at a discount or for free, particularly in inner-city neighborhoods.

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.

Rural residents of Baltimore County who object to the prospect of wider country roads and bridges are planning to give their views at a public hearing scheduled for tomorrow in Towson. For months, the residents have opposed county planners' proposals to widen some thoroughfares as a way of handling increased traffic and complying with updated safety standards. Officials say that more than 20 bridges and several roads in the county need widening, while rural preservationists see one-lane bridges and curvy roads as an effective way to slow traffic.

The City Council of Baltimore might not be ready to ban single-use plastic shopping bags, but I am. I'm done. I don't know when this happened exactly, but I reached some sort of tipping point with plastic bags a few weeks ago. Now I can't stand them. Some people don't want to see Kyle Boller as the Ravens' quarterback anymore. I don't want to see plastic bags. Of course, going cold turkey requires asking for paper at the supermarket - not a great option - or toting reusable bags into the store with you. A lot of people, especially males, struggle with this.

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.

Recently, I took part in a cleanup of Western Run stream in Mount Washington. Dozens of volunteers in boots and gloves waded into and around our local waterway, picking up whatever garbage we could find. While we came upon many interesting objects - including almost enough car parts to build an entire car - the vast majority of the trash we collected consisted of plastic bags and plastic bottles. A little research revealed that Americans use 50 billion to 80 billion plastic bags a year.

A man whose brother died in police custody May 30 after swallowing bags of cocaine is under arrest in an unrelated incident, authorities in Harford County said yesterday. Reginald Leon Bolden, 24, who is charged with attempted murder in the shooting of a Havre de Grace man outside a Waffle House restaurant in Belcamp on May 24, was arrested Friday evening on North Avenue in Baltimore after a short foot chase. Sgt. Dave Betz, a spokesman for the Harford County Sheriff's Office, said that Bolden, a resident of Forge Hill Road in Bel Air, is being held without bail at the Harford County Detention Center.