Plastic bags are handy, but threaten our environment

Once a month or so, my wife and I call a collector to take away the recyclable trash piling up on our kitchen balcony - newspapers, packaging cardboard, bottles and so forth. Often, he pays us one or two bucks.

But there are always items he doesn't want - plastic bags.

We have been trying to use as few plastic bags as possible, but still they pile up. I don't know how others dispose of them. We keep the clean, intact ones to use on future shopping trips. The dirty ones go to their final use, as trash bags. However, most bags are stained or small ones that we have to take out with other trash.