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Plastic grocery bags. How many of us have a bag (or more) full, stashed in a closet or under the kitchen sink, meaning to reuse them someday? And how many of us have accumulated a wealth of reusable bags that we intend to take with us shopping but somehow always manage to forget?
According to the Plastic Pollution Coalition:
- Roughly 19 billion plastic bags are distributed in California annually.
- Less than 5% are currently recycled.
- Even when bags are properly disposed, they often blow out of trash cans, garbage trucks, and landfills and become litter.
- Most California retailers subsidize the cost of plastic and paper bags. This cost is estimated at more than $400 million annually, and is passed on to consumers in the form of higher grocery costs.
- In January, Washington, DC enacted a 5 cent ‘fee’ on grocery bags. That policy has been credited with reducing single-use bags by 65%.
- Plastic bags are a key component of the plastic pollution choking our land, our oceans, and our wildlife.
So what is the solution? Right now, the state of California is debating whether or not to pass a ban on all plastic grocery bags. AB 1998 could be an important step for the state. Recently, many cities in California have been prevented by the plastic bag industry from enacting their own local bans because of the environmental impact report required before each ban can go into effect. Unfortunately, individual cities don’t have the funds necessary to pay for separate EIR’s and are relying on the state to ban the bags once and for all.
California’s bag ban comes with another interesting feature: not only does it ban plastic bags, but it also imposes a 25 cent fee on paper bags, so that the question of paper vs. plastic will be moot. The hope is that customers will start bringing their own reusable bags shopping instead of relying on any form of disposable bag.
There are those who think banning the bags is a great idea. And there are others who feel that bans only create resentment and that charging a fee is a better way to go. In fact, that five cent bag tax in DC is being considered success by many assessments. Erik Assadourian from WorldWatch Institute has written a comprehensive analysis of both options, concluding that a tax is the better way to go:
But the key point is that in a culture like America, where freedom is deemed sacred (even though governments, business, and the media regularly shape our behaviors and thoughts), preserving the perception of free choice is an important part of any successful legislation. So while a plastic bag ban might be better in some places-like China, Kenya, or, yes, San Francisco, a significant bag tax might be the best way to go in California.
Plenty of BlogHers have weighed in on the issue -- some supporting a ban, some supporting a tax and some just wondering what they'll put their garbage in.
Here are a few of the opinions from around the web.
Plastic Bag Fee
Jess Leber on Change.org cites the Assadourian piece and concludes that a bag tax, even a small one like the 5 cent tax that was enacted in Washington D.C., works on the guilt factor:
A five cent fee is a pidgin compared to a $50 grocery bill. It certainly leaves us a choice. So, how’s that going to be effective? It’s the guilt factor, of course. You feel more and more ashamed when every time you check out at the local Safeway, you are forced to think about your environmental negligence and admit it to all within earshot.
D.C. blogger Amelia from Gradually Greener says the bag tax is “totally working,” citing her own experience:
I did find myself refusing a plastic CVS bag the other day when I bought a couple of bath items (I stowed them in my purse instead). Probably I’d have taken the bag if it weren’t for the fee.
But blogger TaxGirl, whose tagline is “Because paying taxes is painful… but reading about them shouldn’t be,” finds a problem with the concept of bag fees. When cities depend on them for revenue, the success at behavior modification can be costly.
The very nature of taxing “bad behavior” is that, if you’re successful, the revenue stream will eventually dry up. And yes, it feels like that should be a good thing. But politicians aren’t
