Pros and cons about paying 5 cents for a bag in a store
Kidsday reporter James Mannino of Idle Hour Elementary School, Oakdale, collected opinions about the five-cent fee on plastic bags in Suffolk County. Credit: Gina Cerulli
Do you live in Suffolk County? If you do, how do you feel about paying 5 cents for a bag when you buy something at a store? I asked lots of family and friends, and here's what they had to say.
Pros:
1. People will think twice about paying for a bag they are just going to throw away.
2. It keeps our streets and waters cleaner because people are more likely to bring their own bag than buy one and throw it out. If it doesn’t get into the garbage can, it floats around our streets.
3. More people are using their own bags, so guess what? That’s less garbage at the landfills.
Cons:
1. Plastic bags take forever to decompose, and you have to pay 5 cents to help ruin our environment.
2. Normally plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to decompose in landfills. More bags being sold means more bags in our landfills.
3. If you forget to bring your own bag, then you have to waste your hard-earned money that you could’ve spent on something else.
These are the pros and cons about paying 5 cents for bags. How does this make you feel?
Gina Cerulli’s fifth-grade class, Idle Hour Elementary School, Oakdale
