Dear editor,

Tom Fletcher plays a role he clearly enjoys: muckraker. Historically defined as, 鈥楯ournalists who attacked established institutions and leaders as corrupt.鈥�

In the early 1920s, they typically had large audiences. And they spawned 鈥榶ellow journalists,鈥� such as Randolph Hearst. Now a certain journalist-hating president has assumed the role.

Clearly muckraking has had played a journalistic role. However, at times muckraking morphs into the picayune. 鈥榩etty; small-minded.鈥�

Methinks that is the case in Fletcher鈥檚 recent diatribe against plastic recycling. (Reality of our plastic recycling routine exposed, May 21).

As I read the article I initially thought he might be onto something, particularly with his comment about a Danish Study that (he claims) showed cotton grocery bags having to be used 7,000 times to make it more environmentally sound than a plastic bag. As he provided no proof of this research, I searched for it (. One concern of his use of the study is that, for Fletcher鈥檚 comment about it being environmentally friendlier than cotton bags, the users of the plastic bags would have to be far more fastidious than has been the case, at least in North America and Asia鈥� perhaps Europeans are a one-off on this. As with much of his article, Fletcher tends to ignore how people actually act, and replace realities with best-case scenarios. Additionally, he omits the mountains of plastic bags found in the ocean. (There is a disgusting amount of plastic in our oceans. In 2015, scientists calculated that anywhere between 15 and 40 percent of our plastic waste ends up in the water or on the beach. That鈥檚 about 4 million to 12 million metric tons of plastic that washed offshore鈥攁round 1.5 percent to 4.5 percent of the world鈥檚 total plastic production鈥攊n 2010 alone. It鈥檚 enough to cover every single foot of coastline on the planet. And that鈥檚 a lot of coast. which will only get worse as fewer places accept plastic 鈥渨aste.鈥�

Let鈥檚 be frank. The real problem has to do with human behaviour and the incredible 鈥榚ase鈥� of plastics usage.

So, while Tom Fletcher occasionally fills the muckraking role, he also tends to go overboard on nitpicking. The fact is that plastic bag use and abuse has created such an incredible amount of waste both in the ocean and on land, that the idea of retaining it is not credible. What has to change is human behavior surrounding plastic bag use.

Until that occurs, it makes sense to remove the offender, from ocean and land, as is occurring here and in many places, thanks to people like Helen Boyd.

Steve C. Faraher-Amidon,

Comox