To whom it may concern: 

Aldi, the new grocery store in town is a German based company that is sending a subtle message to our town folks.

They offer no plastic bags at the store and you must have a quarter if you want to use a shopping cart. How inconvenient you may ask. But Germans and most European countries have learned years ago that stewardship of your local environment starts with small gestures.

Returning your shopping card, getting your quarter back and saving bumping into carelessly abandoned carts on the parking lot is simply put: smart.

Plastics are most damaging to our environment. They end up in land fills, waterways, oceans, even in our own bodies. Is it so much trouble to avoid this problem by using and reusing your own shopping bag when going to the grocery store? A small gesture when practiced by many goes a long way towards protecting our one and only beautiful country.

And please, leave politics out of this conversation.

 

– Nick Bottka