Dear Editor:

I have a “what if.”

I loved it when our town started to do recycling and it worked well for quite awhile and I got used to separating my trash: cleaning it, putting it in separate containers, and dropping off my trash with a sense that I was doing the environment justice. But now that China is not taking certain plastics anymore, we (the U.S.) are at the point where we don't have a process to take care of or places to put our "bad" plastic.

What if we pressure our retailers to not put their products in non-recyclable plastic? Say, I clean all my containers originally from products I have purchased just from my favorite local grocery store. And ask them to please provide their merchandise in, say, biodegradable containers that won't hurt our environment. They don't have much control over the major brand name companies, but they must have a say in their so-called store brands. I could write up a statement about the reasons I am returning part of their products they are selling to the public. Would this encourage them to do the right thing? What if we all did it?

Patsy Messier

Wiscasset