The Irish government recently put into law a tax of 15c on each plastic (‘carrier’) bag distributed by supermarkets, convenience stores, etc.
The tax was enacted for environmental reasons: in order to discourage indiscriminate disposal of bags, which numbered in the billions per annum. Anecdotally, the effect I have observed is that the supermarkets appear now to be full of people carrying reusable shopping bags with them. I am also expecting to see fewer rogue bags scattered around in the coming months.
I never thought I’d say this about a new tax (or the current government): but I think it’s a fantastic idea. I’ve been trying to think of negatives about it, and the only ones I can come up with are 1) new tax = bad, 2) extra work for shopkeepers, and 3) damages plastic bag industry.
However, mindful of the wide spectrum of political opinion on the SDMB, I am interested to hear other arguments against this.
Some possible objections:[ul][li]Is the damage from plastic bags that big? What’s the argument? Landfill costs (does garbage attract full market land prices?)? Some sort of greenhouse story? How did it come to be 15c rather than 10c or 20c - certainly you’d hope it was related to marginal environmental damage, but it’s probably as much a feel good measure as a genuine environmental measure.[]“Extra work for shopkeepers” is not such a small deal - unless there’s a real environmental justification, you’re just reducing productivity of a scarce resource. Collection costs have to be counted here too.[]Equity is a problem. Almost certainly this tax will be paid disproportionately by low income households (this applies to most environmental taxes) Plastic bag use as a proportion of income falls with income. Supposing it has some environmental justification, the tax has some defects. It gives consumers who are probably the least able to influence environmental outcomes the incentive to economise on plastic bag use, but it fails to give producers an incentive to develop or make more environmentally friendly plastic bags.[/ul][/li]
But it doesn’t sound too bad.
Overall, the idea sounds ok to me too. So I’ll just add one other possible negative…
What is the collected tax money used for? Does it go toward cleaning up the environment (good) or to support some totally unrelated program (possibly bad or at least, unfair).
Thank you for the analysis. I don’t have very good cites for any of my answers so there may be inaccuracies creeping in here (Ireland.com search engine is worse than useless). Feel free to correct me, anyone.
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*Originally posted by hawthorne *[ul][li]Is the damage from plastic bags that big? What’s the argument[/ul][/li][/quote]
It’s a small country, and the landfills are overstretched. New landfills are almost impossible to build due to local protest. The number of bags disposed of per annum was running at 1.2 billion - this in a country with a population of under 4M people.
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[ul][li]“Extra work for shopkeepers” is not such a small deal[/ul][/li][/quote]
No argument for that. They have to fill out separate tax returns as well. However, one might argue that the money they save in purchasing bags could be offset. But I have no figures available to back this up.
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[ul][li]Equity is a problem. Almost certainly this tax will be paid disproportionately by low income households[/ul][/li][/quote]
Hmm… don’t know if I agree with this. the stores are also selling very handy reusable shopping bags for 1 Euro each. I would imagine most people - from any income bracket - would use the alternative.
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[ul][li]<snip> it fails to give producers an incentive to develop or make more environmentally friendly plastic bags.[/ul][/li][/quote]
I think the intention is to incentivise plastic bag producers not to produce plastic bags at all: to cut down drastically/diversify/go out of business through lack of demand.
IIRC it is indeed going directly to funding environmental initiatives (no cite).
The only possible problem I can see is smaller shops charging the money and then keeping it. I’ve seen shops like Spar (quite a big chain over here) use a bar coded tag to register all charges for bags but smaller ones just saying that’s 15c extra and just punching it into the till. Don’t know what controls are in place
15 cents a bag? That makes them more expensive than buying trash bags at the store. It’d kind of put an end to my ‘home recycling plant’.
Take the plastic shopping bags, use them as household garbage bags. No need to buy extra plastic bags, and the ones I do have aren’t just rolled in a ball and thrown out.
Overall though, the point is whether 15c per bag is an accurate reflection of the costs of disposing of the bags, and where the tax money is actually being used.
If they’re still just dumping all the bags in a landfill and using the tax revenue to buy a government official more expensive cigars - then I’d say the tax is really a waste of resources.
Another possible criticism: Without more local information it’s hard to say, but if a signifigant portion of the population has switched from plastic to paper instead of from plastic to reusable, there could be problems (increased bulk, pollution from local paper mills, etc). Paper isn’t always more environmentally friendly than plastic.
I haven’t seen any evidence of paper bags being offered as a alternative.
The choices I’ve had in every shop I’ve been in are bring(or buy for 1 euro) your own reusable bag, carry the stuff in your hands or pay the 15c and get a plastic bag.
To further clarify: there are no paper grocery bags like you might find in the US - they’re only ever plastic, and quite small - not terribly useful as refuse bags.
Well, it sounds like a perfect opportunity for an enterprising paper mill to make serious money by supplying paper bags to supermarkets, who can then continue to supply free bags to their customers whilst side-stepping the paperwork involved in the plastic bag tax.
Whether this will result in any environmental benefits is anyone’s guess.
This argument has nothing to do with my personal opinion, but here goes…
From a purely philosophical point of view, a new tax like this is an artificial constuct blocking an otherwise free market and thus, taking away an albeit small liberty of the populace.
People want plastic grocery bags, plastics grocery bags are cheap and effective, people like inexpensive grocery bills, when people are given a choice between A) inexpensive grocery bills and litter/landfill problems or B) higher grocery bills and less litter/landfill clutter they opt for the first choice.
Isn’t it our right as member of democratic societies to choose that which we want? If people in general didn’t think that the benefit outweighed the costs of consumption, they would choose paper bags or use canvas bags that are reusable. Plus, if I am a manufacturer of plastic bags, doesn’t this roadblock (tax) interfere with my right to open a concern that capitalizes on market demands. Plus, it is in my interest to solve some of these environmental problems in order to keep demand strong for my product. The government is probably more effective encouraging business in that type of manner than it is in simply enacting new taxes to solve every problem that comes along.
So, private industry is an expression of our freedom and taxes a clear infringement of that freedom. The problem as I perceive is it (for example)is that often people/populations say that they want the problem of blue plastic grocery bags to go away, but when they are at the checkout, they use the plastic bags. People oftentimes say that there is nothing they can do about the problem, when the answer is right in front of them.
Thermalribbon has a point, but we must bear in mind that using taxes (and tax incentives) as a means of encouraging particular behaviour (as well as a means of raising revenue) is nothing new. A flat rate sales tax on all goods and services may be justified as a means of raising revenue, but when we exempt, say, educatational services from the sales tax while imposing extra taxes on, say, cigarettes, we do this because we want people to get educated and we don’t want them to smoke. Someone who feels that the behaviour of individuals is no concern of the government would oppose both the exemption for educational services and the extra tax on cigarettes. And there are hundreds, if not thousands, of similar examples in the economies of all developed countries.
A tax to discourage the production of waste can be justified on the grounds that those who produce the waste do not bear the full cost of disposing of it; they impose part of the cost on someone else, who has no choice in the matter. Hence the unregulated market is inefficient at allocating the costs of waste disposal.
In this case the 15c tax goes into an environmental fund which is used to address waste disposal, litter and similar problems so, far from penalising plastic bag producers unfairly, it could be argued that it goes some way to allocating properly the cost of their activity. It is a fairly crude allocation, admittedly, and the plastic bag producers could argue that they are unfairly treated relative to the producers of other products which also create waste but which are not taxed.
It should also be pointed out that, as well as depressing demand for disposable plastic bags, the new tax should promote demand for reuseable bags, which (presumably) can be made by the same producers.
As a side note: paper bags are not much used in Ireland. High energy costs mean that they are more expensive than plastic to make, the greater weight and bulk means they cost more to deliver and the frequently wet weather means that they are often not very effective for carrying groceries.
The tax is imposed on the consumer, not the retailer or the manufacturer. Does that alter any arguments?
I would say that the reduced necessity to provide free plastic bags to consumers would benefit the retailer too (see earlier comment re offsetting against extra accounting labour). The manufacturer is the real loser, being forced into an adapt-or-die situation.