To the Editor:

It was nice stopping in at the Farm Fresh grocery store here in Franklin two days ago.

It was early and the store was not very busy. I purchased a newspaper and walked outside.

The wind was blowing several light brown plastic bags across the parking lot and one plastic bag was being blown about the inside of a shopping cart.

I went back inside and observed a cashier placing another customers groceries in plastic bags. What happened? Where did the plastic bags come from?

I have been away from Farm Fresh for only several weeks, and now they are using the dreaded plastic bags.

When Farm Fresh first opened here in Franklin, I was really pleasantly surprised and very pleased by their “no plastic” and five-cent reward for using reusable cloth shopping bags. I said to others, “Finally there’s a store with the guts to do something about the destructive effects of millions of plastic bags strewn over the streets, parking lots, drainage canals and fields of this city and county.”

Several weeks after Farm Fresh opened with their “green” ideas, Walmart and Food Lion were suddenly selling the reusable cloth shopping bags to their customers, but did not go the extra mile by not offering the plastic bags.

I’m sad and disappointed about Farm Fresh’s decision.

These bags blowing in the wind may make it to the rivers of our county and maybe even into the sea where Sea Turtles and other animals will have to deal with them along with the biggest oil spill in history.

Think about them the next time your cashier in checkout asks “paper or plastic?”

By the way, when I made a purchase of seedless grapes later in the day, the cashier did not ask me about my bag choice, but just did what was easiest and used plastic. See, it’s not easy to do the right thing.

Albert Craven

Franklin