I want to pay 20 cents for grocery bags
Call me crazy, but I like the idea of charging for plastic and paper bags.
As of January 1, 2009, Seattle will start charging 20 cents for each plastic or paper bag.
“The answer to the question paper or plastic has officially become “
“And think how much easier it would be if we all just new to carry reusable bags in our backseats, trunks, etc.?”
Liz, you don’t have kids do you? I can’t go around hauling two dozen reusable bags to hold my $400 of groceries when I go shopping. I use plastic bags, and I recycle them. Works just as well, and I didn’t buy gov’t subsidized cotton which was sewn into bags by slave labor in China, either.
If grocery stores want to charge for bags, and they can get away with it without losing customers, then so be it. More power to them. That’s the free market. However, the city council should not be regulating at this level.
The kicker to this story is at the end. It shows what I believe is the ultimate motive for this “bag tax” – revenue for city government: “In Seattle, the bag tax is expected to raise 3.5 million dollars a year.”
$3.5 million into the city coffers ain’t chump change. That’s what this is about as much as anything else, under the guise of being ‘environmentally conscious’, regardless of whether one thinks it’s a good or bad idea.
I have kids, and we shop with the reuseable bags. The hardest part is remembering to put them back in the trunk so you have them when you get to the grocery store. But it’s well worth the effort, at least for the segment of population that actually cares about their impact. Should note that we recently realized how great these reuseable bags are for car-camping as well. They stand-up better, balance better, and just function better.
Recycling plastic/paper bags is obviously preferable to landfilling them, but in the ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ triangle, recycling is the last option for a reason. Reusable bags become more efficient within a few weeks.
There’s another side benefit for progressive cities like Seattle that work hard to promote lower environmental impacts. People who disagree with the policies won’t move there. Huge bonus.
Liz,
That was quite a diatribe. However, no where in it did you tell us just exactly why you are in such a petit mal dither about paper and plastic bags.
BTW, in my home town in downstate Indiana, there is a factory that employs over 100 people who make plastic bags. You apparently don’t give a rip about their jobs or their families.
At least you feel good about yourself – and I guess that’s all that counts.
That’s gotta be some kind of Stephen Colbert routine.
Now, granted, like most Minnesotans I care deeply about the plastic bag manufacturing industry of downstate Indiana. Keeps me awake at night, quite frankly. I’m sure the Ohio River benefits enormously. Any chance we could retool that place into something more corrosive?
I have kids and use reusable bags and we use the bags for much more than groceries. The kids use them to carry their toys into the van. I carry my lunch to work.
If the paper bag making industry does not like the reusable bags, may be they should start making them. I bet those workers would love the bags then.