4A | THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2019 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Cottage Grove Sentinel
116 N. Sixth St.
Cottage Grove, Ore. 97424
NED HICKSON , MANAGING EDITOR |
Opinion
541-902-3520 | NHICKSON @ CGSENTINEL . COM
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ongress shall make no law respect-
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ment for a redress of grievances.
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” —Thomas Jefferson (1800)
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Letters to the Editor Policy
The Sentinel welcomes letters to the editor as part of a
community discussion of issues on the local, state and national
level.
Emailed letters are preferred. Handwritten or typed letters
must be signed. All letters need to include full name, address
and phone number; only name and city will be printed. Letters
should be limited to about 300 words. Letters are subject to
editing for length, grammar and clarity. Publication of any
letter is not guaranteed and depends on space available and the
volume of letters received.
Letters that are anonymous, libelous, argumentative,
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documentation will not be published.
Letters containing poetry or from outside The Sentinel
readership area will only be published at the discretion of the
editor.
Political/Election Letters:
Something most of us can agree on
because it’s second
making great strides,
nature. I’m so used to it
leading the state in this
being there that I don’t
campaign by being the
even think about how of- only county in Oregon
ten — and in how many to send more waste to
ways — I use electricity.
recyclers than we did to
The same can be said
landfills.
While our dependence
The inclusion of plastic for our use of plastic.
Here are a few statis-
on plastic is a global
in our lives has grown
exponentially over the
past 70 years, making
our lives easier, more
From the Editor's Desk
convenient and often
Ned Hickson
providing a significant
cost savings almost too
tics to help illustrate the issue, the solutions will
good to be true.
However, over the past scope of how plastic has need to be implement-
few years we have begun become a second-nature ed one community at a
element of our lives:
time, with the first step
to realize that the eco-
Worldwide, more than in that process being
logical interest rate on
500 billion plastic bags
education.
the cost of convenience
are used each year, or
Before we can solve
has come due — with
more than 1 million bags the plastic problem, we
an unexpected balloon
every minute.
need to fully understand
payment.
The average “working its scope and the ways
We produce nearly 300
life” of a plastic bag is 15 it is intertwined — not
million tons of plastic
only among those of us
products each year in the minutes, after which it
who use it, but how any
U.S., nearly half of which “retires.”
In
1996,
3.8
billion
changes we make could
is designed for single-use
plastic water bottles were impact us economically.
purposes in what has
sold in the U.S. By 2014,
Beginning Jan. 1,
increasingly become a
that number had grown
Oregon HB 2509, also
disposable society. And
known as the “Sustain-
despite efforts to educate to 57.3 billion.
It’s no small irony that able Shopping Initiative”
the public about the im-
portance of “Reduce, Re- the process of producing passed by the Oregon
a water bottle actually re- Legislature earlier this
use and Recycle,” each
year more than 8 million quires six times as much year, will go into effect,
prohibiting retail stores
tons of plastic is dumped water as there is in the
and restaurants from pro-
actual container itself.
into our oceans.
viding single-use checkout
In Lane County, our
When we lose elec-
bags to customers, and
goal is to recyle two-
tricity in our home, I
still walk into every dark thirds of our waste prod- placing restrictions on
other checkout bags they
room and flip the switch ucts by 2025. We were
may provide.
Like any change in
routine, this will feel like
an inconvenience until,
eventually, bringing our
own shopping bags be-
comes second nature.
In some cases, it will
likely mean an additional
cost for things like to-go
containers or — should
we forget our shopping
bags — the need to
purchase a multi-use
alternative at the store.
While deep divisons
continue over our im-
pact as a society on the
changing climate, most
of us can agree on the
need to find solutions
to dealing with what we
once embraced as an
element of everyday life
that seemed too good to
be true — and was.
The question is what
we can do — and are
willing to do — as indi-
viduals, a community
and society to address
the true cost of conve-
nience.
(Editor’s Note: For
complete information on
HB 2509, visit https://
olis.leg.state.or.us/liz
/2019R1/Measures/Over-
view/HB2509)
LETTERS
Awesome gifts from
our community
To the residents and friends of
Cottage Grove, my family and I
wish to thank all of the kindred
spirits in our community for the
good work done and activities that
take place.
To name a few, PeaceHealth Hos-
pital, the new school, new pool and
walking bridge.
Such awesome gifts unite us all,
young and old.
Thank you and Happy Holidays
to all of you.
—Marie Melton
Cottage Grove
Election-related letters must address pertinent or timely
issues of interest to our readers at-large.
Letters must: 1) Not be a part of letter-writing campaigns
on behalf of (or by) candidates; 2) Ensure any information
about a candidate is accurate, fair and not from second-hand
knowledge or hearsay; and 3) explain the reasons to support
candidates based on personal experience and perspective
rather than partisanship and campaign-style rhetoric.
Candidates themselves may not use the letters to the editor
column to outline their views and platforms or to ask for votes;
this constitutes paid political advertising.
As with all letters and advertising content, the newspaper,
at the sole discretion of the publisher, general manager and
editor, reserves the right to reject any letter that doesn’t follow
the above criteria.
Send letters to:
nhickson@cgsentinel.com
HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS
Oregon state
representatives
Oregon federal
representatives
• Sen. Floyd Prozanski
• Rep. Peter DeFazio
District 4 State Senator
PO Box 11511
Eugene, Ore. 97440
Phone: 541-342-2447
Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@
state.or.us
(House of Representatives)
405 East 8th Ave.
#2030
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: defazio.house.gov/
contact/email-peter
Phone: 541-465-6732
• Rep. Cedric Hayden
Republican District 7 State
Representative
900 Court St. NE
Salem, Ore. 97301
Phone: 503-986-1407
Website: www.leg.state.or.
us/hayden
Email: rep.cedrichayden@
state.or.us
• Sen. Ron Wyden
405 East 8th Ave., Suite
2020
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: wyden.senate.gov
Phone: (541) 431-0229
• Sen. Jeff Merkley
Email: merkley.senate.gov
Phone: 541-465-6750
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