Suspected amount of litter is erroneous

Re: “Treat the hills with respect and care,” Mailbag, Sept. 5: The good writer’s apparent lack of finding any larger-size plastic bags — i.e, the so-called single use, carry-out-your-groceries ones that are some five times taller than the 3-inch ones that he mentioned observing — would seem to indirectly support the conclusions of Environmental Resources Planning, LLC, an independent, Gaithersburg, Md. firm that has determined that these bags have erroneously been vastly over-estimated as a component of city litter.

The firm’s objective analysis, albeit perhaps belated for L.A.’s multitudes of market shoppers, concludes that most litter surveys consistently show that such retail plastic bags account for less than 5% of litter; less than 1% in most of them.

In its professional opinion conclusions (as written by the firm’s principal, Steven R. Stein) ERP recommends to Los Angeles City Council members — and surely by eventual extension, to Glendale City Council members — that they conduct their own scientific facts-based litter analyses before voting on whether or not to actually inflict such a burdensome ban, at least being so for the majority of their constituents, in particular. I’d personally add their many impromptu shoppers, not to mention the truly “green” ones who regularly, if not habitually, walk or ride their bicycles to and from the market.

Harvey Pearson
Los Feliz