To reinforce, Ravenman’s point, from what I recall, the purpose of the tax was more to cut the amount of litter and to help clean up the Anacostia, not just to increase recycling.
Ravenman, have you noticed that the amount of litter seems to be down overall in your neighborhood? I’ve noticed it where I am. I’ve even noticed fewer empty beer cans and Velikoff bottles in the alley whereas a few years ago, there were many.
The plastic bags are definitely way down, and the other random crap may be down a slight bit, but nowhere near as much. My pad is right on a major thoroughfare between several schools, and right next to a bus stop, so there’s never a shortage of empty Rock Creek soda bottles, McFlurry containers, 4 oz liquor bottles, and other crap.
Every now and then I’ll look out the window and see someone walking down the street eating a Big Mac, and just simply wad up the container and throw it down on the sidewalk. It’s shocking to me that people actually do that.
Your response is purely anecdotal. Good luck finding stats to the contrary! The point is, the bag tax is not going to have a measurable impact on the amount of litter or on waste!
We don’t have a bag tax in AZ. Yet.
I use my cotton bags for shopping. I use them for everything, so I always have a couple in my car and saddlebags. I’m a recycling and no littering Nazi. (how do I find the post about making the UPS guy clean up cigarette butts).
I usually don’t complain to management about minor things, but one time I was getting groceries and gave the bagger my cotton bags. He promptly put my stuff in plastic bags. When I told him that I didn’t want plastic, I wanted them in my bags, the bagger pouted and jammed my stuff in my bags and threw the plastic in the trash.
I wrote a bitchy letter to corp, using the bagger’s name. I don’t know that anyone cared, I got the auto “thank you for your concerns” letter, but I’ve not seen that bagger again.
Another thing to consider is that reusable bags either get really nasty and gross inside over time, possibly contaminating the food and causing you to get sick, and/or you have to use water and soap and energy (for hot water) to clean them, wasting those resources each time far and above the amount of resources it takes to create and recycle a thin plastic bag.
I toss them in the washing machine with my jeans and workshirts. I don’t think it costs more water/soap/energy to add a couple of cotton bags to the mix. The washing machine will be running with or with out bags, so how does it cost more?
I wonder, do you hand wash handbags and suitcases as well, or do you buy in stores which don’t know how to pack things?
My reusable shopping bags aren’t any kind of nasty and gross, nor have they ever been. The only time I’ve needed to wash one, it was because of an orange that got smashed against a corner when I got pushed by some moron who was in a hurry.
It might cost a fraction of a cent more to wash the bags, but hardly more than that. And it’s not like the bags have to be washed constantly. I have no cites, but I’d guess that it costs a lot less in both money and energy to wash and dry a canvas bag than it does to recycle a plastic bag.
Plus I’ve never had a canvas bag break and spill my shopping all over the ground.
:dubious: What on earth are you doing with your bags that they’re nasty and gross? I mean, we have a couple that tend to get a bit grubby inside, but that’s because we use them for trips to the farmer’s market and put unwashed root veggies in them. Food from the store is generally either packaged in some way, or in the case of loose produce, has been thoroughly washed. Once in a very, very great while you get a bottle or package of meat that will leak, but typically a bagger will put meat in a plastic bag inside your bag just to be on the safe side, so I can’t say I’ve ever had meat juices leak out onto one of our bags.
And as others have said, tossing a bag in with a load of laundry you’re doing anyway doesn’t exactly take any more resources than not tossing the bag in. So I’m just not getting this particular argument at all.
Question…In the locals where they have banned the plastic bags, are they offering the old brown type paper bags to the shoppers?
Have you ever actually been in a room with a reusable bag, or known anyone who has?
:shrug: Not really sure how many tickets get handed out. There are plenty of signs warning of the fine though. I think it’s a good deterrent.
And I don’t think it’s litter patrol per se. They see someone littering, they give them a ticket. Expecially if it’s cigarettes. We have enough wildfire problems as it is.
It may also be that Coloradoans are more respectful of our state. I must say, I love how clean our State is.
You need to have the plainly obvious explained to you?
Wow. I try to be respectful of other viewpoints, but this could be the stupidest thing I have ever heard on the SDMB.
There are signs warning against littering, including one just a couple blocks from my house that threatens a $1,000 fine. (I think that may be just over the border in Prince George’s County, though). People still litter all the time. DC residents just aren’t the same as Coloradans.
And to be clear, I live in a neighborhood were there are no cops walking the beat. It’s not like a cop on the street corner is going to see someone littering; the police are patrolling in cars. And again, I’d much rather have police spending their time doing more important things, and attack the litter problem in other ways.
Yep they don’t walk beats here either. The people that are littering are doing it from cars. So they get pulled over just like they would if they where speeding. I think that’s VERY worthwhile, and the scumbags deserve it. YM obviously V.
The trouble with trying to influence behavior with punishment is that most folks assume they won’t get caught. Just like with a kid, you say “I’ll punish you if you do X” and they hear “I’ll get punished if I’m CAUGHT doing X”, and put their efforts into avoiding capture.
Color me dubious, for one thing, half of the Anacostia River and its tributaries are in PG county, which doesn’t even have a bag tax (yet).
Dude, you know, just because someone doesn’t agree with your viewpoint, does not make them possibly intellectually impaired. I’m hardly the only far-left Liberal (but not into woo science territory) who recycles/reuses as much of his waste as possible that thinks that the bag tax is silly.
Also, for everyone who wants to put raw meat in their reusable bags, then fresh vegetables the next time, I say go for it. I personally don’t like food poisoning:
http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2011/03/08/unintended-consequences-of-bag-tax/
OP, on a scale of 1-10 how much do you genuinely hate the idea of resource conservation and environmental regulations in general?
Google the issue yourself, then. The bag tax has reduced litter, provided funds to help with the rehabilitation of the river, and has cut consumption of plastic bags by at least two-thirds. Sorry that the facts don’t fit in to how you wish they were.
First, nobody here is saying that plastic bags ought to be illegal. Second, quoting a guy who works for a non-profit funded by Philip Morris, the fast food industry, and agribusiness isn’t exactly the kind of study that inspires confidence. Third, who puts raw meat directly into a bag?
Fourth, why the hell are you pro-plastic bag? Seriously, what the hell do you care? Are you under the impression that plastic bags used to be free, and now they are not? Back here in reality, it is simply that the cost of the plastic bag is now visible to consumers – before the bag tax, the cost of bags was simply spread around the products sold by a store, and the cost of environmental cleanup (like the Anacostia efforts, which I’m told amounts to millions per year) came out of the general tax revenue. Do you work for a plastic bag manufacturer or something?