I’m not the OP, but on that scale, for me, the answer is 10 (assuming 10 = the LEAST amount of hate).
The problem with the bag tax is that is is not terribly effective relative to the amount of energy and time spent on it. There are plenty of other conservation efforts that are largely ignored that could give a hell of a lot more bang for the buck if implemented, such as:
[ul]
[li]Stop delivering phone books unless specifically requested.[/li][li]Insure that there are paper, plastic and metal recycling bins accessible to all private homes and businesses.[/li][li]Charge a bag tax for each bag of trash hauled to the dump (many municipalities already do this).[/li][li]Organize volunteers/non-violent inmates/people-that-need-to-do-community-service more effectively to clean up litter.[/li][li]Pass legislation to require less wasteful packaging for consumer goods. Short of passing legislation, encourage companies to do this by showing them how it can benefit their own bottom lines.[/li][li]Encourage the use of biodegradable plastic. You know, the kind that breaks down quickly from UV light. Or encourage businesses to use water-dissolvable bags (and yes, they exist!)[/li][/ul]
Plastic bags are one small part of the entire picture, but by blowing your entire wad on this “feel good” issue, you are doing a disservice to all the other issues related to conservation and the environment.
Nobody’s blowing a wad. This particular act helps a very visible problem - all the nasty plastic bags in the Anacostia. That’s why it’s higher priority than all the other green initiatives that could be taken.
And one more observation: ALDI forces customers to bring their own bags to help keep costs down. Therefore plastic bags must be at least enough of a cost that they figure into a store’s pricing of its goods.
Recent article on dissolvable plastic. Encourage this technology and there won’t be any more waste plastic in trees in DC or in the Anacostia or anywhere. Problem solved.
Name one person who has said that we should have bag taxes and should not do most or all of the above. I am not aware of anyone anywhere who has suggested that a bag tax should be done to the exclusion of everything else.
Are you aware of what the term “false dilemma” means? As in, supporting one thing does not mean opposition to other things? I would think that people who actually volunteer to do those weekend cleanups would be very heavily in favor of bag taxes, reducing phone book waste, reducing excess packing materials, organizing volunteers, and other environmental measures.
Again, what is your real agenda here? Why are you pro-free plastic bag?
Well, all of the air is being sucked out of the room (bag?) by this one issue. Sort of how the monster that is Susan G. Komen sucked away so much of the public’s charitable donations for one particular medical cause, leaving many other cancer and other health charities foundering; there was little left for any of the other issues because they monopolized “health care research” in the public’s mind. The fact that we’re debating plastic bag taxes here instead of looking at the bigger picture is an example of this point. If you asked 10 people on the streets what environmental and conservation initiatives have been taken up by the city lately, what else could they name?
I’m not sure how much a dissolvable plastic bag would cost right now. But, presumably if this was a priority, costs would go down as production scale was ramped up. Jurisdictions could even offer tax incentives for businesses switching to them, so rather than using the stick approach (bag taxes) they could use a carrot, to try to modify behavior via the tax code.
There is no debate in DC on the bag tax. The law is three years old, nobody is arguing in favor of keeping it. It is a non issue. The City Paper has had less than four stories on the bag tax in the last year. It isn’t a hot issue in any way.
No, it isn’t. I’m also involved on threads on this board about jury duty, local taxes, foreign policy, and a half dozen other topics doesn’t mean that those threads are distracting me from responding to your horribly inept arguments.
Recycling, the electric car program, the streetcar program, bike lanes, maybe some other things. But right now, the issues of the economy and corruption are easily the biggest issues in DC. Once again, you are making really lame arguments because you don’t seem to have a grasp on the fact that the bag tax isn’t a big issue at all right now.
Whose taxes are you going to raise to pay for these government subsidies? How are you going to make up for the loss of bag tax revenue for the environmental programs that are funded by them, but do more than simply clean up litter?
Jeez, what a bunch of whiny babies. In Ireland, we’ve been paying €0.22 per plastic bag for the past five years now. At current exchange rates, that’s about $0.29.
I’ll keep a light plastic bag in my jacket pocket for small purchases; for heavy grocery shopping, you can usually get your stuff packed in a cardboard box for free (my preference). Others use the cotton bags or heavier plastic bags. Big freaking deal.
The bag tax is one of the greatest things the Irish government ever brought in. I remember you used to see plastic bag trees and rivers full of that stuff.
For a long time local grocery stores here would REFUND you five cents for each bag you brought in yourself. That was a nice incentive.
FWIW, Cost Plus and some other stores have some very efficient bags that fold up into a little container. They collapse and take hardly any space at all, and then you can unfold them out of themselves and put quite a lot in them. And they’re cheap. I try to always have a couple of these on my person.
But I dunno, for five cents I wouldn’t expect a real high quality of plastic bag.
ETA: About this time of year you start seeing a lot of those cheap grocery plastic bags caught in the branches of trees and flying in the wind. Witches’ knickers. They’re really ugly. Would appreciate seeing much less of these, thanks.
I am waiting for some smart grocer to simply offer free bags. In other words figure out how many bags a day are used and pay the tax themselves. Of course they will jack up the price on each item by what it costs to pay, but it’ll make that store seem generous
If a grocer did that he would likely face a backlash from his costumers, the bag tax is largely popular and a lot of people see it as being part of the “new DC” movement that has transformed our city into a vibrant place to live.
My only problem with the bag tax is what our local grocer did when they moved to it.
I shop at two stores: No Frills and Fortinos. At No Frills, you have always had to pay for bags. They are a good size (not huge) and are virtually indesctructable. When the bag tax came in, they continued to charge the same amount for them and I continued to use them in the same way I had previously.
Fortinos used to have fairly decent bags (not as good as No Frills) when they were free. You could carry two 2 litre bottles of soda home in them without being concerned they would break. When the bag tax came in, they replaced their bags with larger ones. But the plastic in these bags is horrible. You can fit a lot more into them but if it weighs more than a couple of pounds, the handles will break from the time you get from cash to car to house.
Since I can’t be arsed to save the 50 cents a week or so, I always buy bags at No Frills. I will use the one in my purse at Fortinos and buy only if I can’t fit everything in there.
(The reusables also squick me out. I wash my purse bag when I use it for anything that is not in a sealed bag or box. It’s nylon so it dries fast at least.)