My opposition to it here in Dallas is because it’s a damned stealth tax that the City ostensibly introduced out of some kind of environmental love, but in reality, it’s a way for them to make more money without raising taxes. Assholes.
Had they really wanted to do the environment a favor, they’d have just banned the things outright. But instead, they make the stores charge a 5 cent fee… that they pass through to themselves. The stores don’t get to keep it; they just get the fun and games of having to charge it and pester people to bring their own bags.
What’s even more idiotic is that you can’t bring back plastic grocery bags for reuse. It has to be some kind of “reusable” bag, or they have to charge you 5 cents a bag for a new one.
And finally… if they were serious about reducing the number of bags, they’d have made the fee like a quarter per bag; enough to make it noticeable. As it is, paying an extra quarter on a $75 grocery bill isn’t a big deal for me, but in aggregate, I’m sure it nets the city a bunch of extra money.
It’s just the City of L.A. though, not the whole county. I work in Burbank, and when I stop at the stores by the office they still give out free plastic bags. If I stop by the stores by my house, I have to remember to bring my own or pay 10 cents for a paper bag. The paper bags are used to hold my recycling, or as cat toys, and the plastic bags line my bathroom trash cans or get used to carry my lunch to work. I have lots of reusable bags, but I usually forget them in the house or my car.
When you say “here” do you mean DC? because I live in DC as well. It may be tolerated as a way of funding the cleanup of the Anacostia but aside from a few people who already carried around their own hemp shopping bags before the bag tax or those people who think that shopping at whole foods makes them better global citizens, no one really “likes” the bag tax.
In fact the bag tax may not have significantly reduced the use of plastic bags.
They can’t actually force you to buy something you already own and don’t want more of, right? Can’t you just say, “no bags for me today, thanks” and be on your way? Why does the store even need to see the bags you brought in to use? Just tell them to put the purchased items back into the cart and you’ll take care of bagging them.
Right. A store owner in San Francisco or Monterey (I forget which) told me that the city sends people around checking that bags are not given out, and the store owner can be fined if they are. This has nothing to do with costs or profitability.
I’ve read that San Jose streams are much cleaner after the change. I certainly don’t see any around any more.
As for dogs, for us the NY Times comes in a plastic bag which is better than the store bags, and you can still get free bags for vegetables. Bags and veggies - win win.
I’ve been using those thin plastic bags for wastebasket liners for some time now. When California passed the law banning the plastic bags (to go into effect this coming July I think), I began hoarding them (which I had not been doing before). I’m trying to collect a lifetime supply between now and July.
Aside from that, I’ve collected about a dozen of the big brown paper shopping bags, which I had been re-using over and over. Doubling these bags makes them last longer – I’m almost certain that doubling them makes them last much more than twice as long. I get anywhere from 20 to 40 re-uses of the doubled paper bags before they fall apart.
I’m not sure that this has anything to do with climate change. It just cuts down littering. And clogging the streams.
As for arousing anger, we’ve been doing it for a few years and I haven’t noticed much. You just have to remember to bring bags with you, and to have one in the car for unexpected errands. The conference I’m involved with gives them out as totes for our material, and since I get some of the surplus I’ve got plenty.
In Germany they’ve been using reusable bags forever.
I like my reusable bags better than plastic ones anyway.
Have you ever thrown a plastic bag into a waterway, or let it go so it gets into streets, trees, power lines, or whatever?
No, and neither have I. I’d bet that 95% of the people on this message board haven’t either. Why should everyone else have to pay a tax because some people are lowlife scum?
53% of DC residents polled support the law, 20% don’t care either way, and 16% are “bothered” by the law. So, you’re wrong.
Read the article again. There’s strong empirical evidence that the initiation of the bag tax reduced consumption and litter. The question is why revenues from the bag tax have remained stable nearly five years after the fee went into effect. And the article postulates an answer: “While the use of bags may be stable or rising in absolute terms, she said, the rate of disposable-bag use could be declining when factoring in the city’s rising population and incomes.”
Keep in mind also that bag tax revenues are steady at $2 million in 2014, as opposed to a projected level of $1 million. That glosses over the fact that revenue was $5 million in 2010. Do you dispute that $2 million is less than $5 million? If not, how can one not acknowledge that bag use has decreased a lot?
We have that option, yes. Bring your own bags, or no bags at all.
What I was griping about is the idea that they’ll charge me 5 cents a bag and THEN prohibit me from bringing those bags back for reuse.
It’s totally baffling in light of the law being environmentally based, which is what makes me think it’s a stealth tax. They really want people to buy more bags, otherwise there’s no good reason not to let you reuse the plastic bags all you want.
I’m sure I’ve never done it on purpose, but I know a couple of times I’ve had bags get away from me. One time I remember specifically, the bagger at the grocer had opened one bag, but it had a number of other bags still attached up at the tags. I grabbed the filled bag, went outside, and all of the other ones came off and fluttered away.
Granted, I doubt that most pollution is caused so inadvertently, but some is.
It isn’t a stealth tax, it’s an upfront tax. In most places it is called “the bag tax.”
Who is “they”? I can tell you that in this area, the government really does want the use of plastic bags to go down. As far as not being allowed to reuse plastic bags, is that a store policy?
Sure, but had they implemented it as a tax, nobody would have gone for it. The implication of the ads and literature was that the stores had to charge you, but not that the city got to keep the whole thing.
No, that’s a city policy. That’s what makes it so sketchy in my eyes. Why would they care in the least if people reused the plastic bags, unless they want people to buy the bags?
That’s nonsense. Not bringing your own bag to a grocery store does not cause pollution of rivers.
My plastic grocery bags are stored in a holder in my kitchen pantry, where they get reused for things like carrying lunches to work, disposing of kitty litter, lining wastebaskets, etc.
Those that are torn, or soiled from things like leaky raw meat packages, stay in the garage until they are returned to the store for recycling.