Posted on 08/26/2008 6:19:16 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
California, with its long coastline littered with white bags, needs a better approach, one that encourages people to make informed choices between disposable and reusable bags. Here are the options:
• A piecemeal, voluntary approach by stores.
• A hard-line approach, such as a ban.
• A simple, market-based solution: a consumption tax. Ireland has taken this route. Since 2002, consumers who forget to bring a bag are charged a 15-cent tax at checkout. Before the tax, Ireland's 3.9 million people used 1.2 billion bags per year. Now it's 230 million. About $9.6 million was raised from the tax in the first year, earmarked for a fund for environmental projects such as recycling refrigerators.
A bill before the California Legislature would adopt Ireland's market-based approach. Beginning in January 2010, Assembly Bill 2769 (by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys) would require California stores to collect a 25-cent tax on all disposable bags, paper or plastic. Stores would get 5 cents for every plastic bag and 10 cents for every paper bag. The balance would go to a Bag Pollution Fund to clean up the litter caused by single-use carryout bags and encourage the reduced use of single-use disposable bags.
The bill has the support of the grocery and retail industries, which currently subsidize the use of disposable bags.
AB 2769 would provide shoppers with a choice: Bring reusable bags or pay the true cost of a disposable bag. That should shift market behavior – and help the environment, too. The Senate should pass AB 2769, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should sign it.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Paper.
Why do you assume that people who justifiably hate the bag tax are lazy? What if somebody just doesn't believe the enviromentalist nonsense about plastic bags destroying the planet? Landfills run deep.
It must be something in the water where you live. One thing I do not see up in the People’s Republic of Washington are plastic bags littered around everywhere; and our stupid bag tax hasn’t even been implemented yet. Of course, that didn’t stop “bag pollution” from being used as an argument toward our 20-cent per bag tax that recently got passed. The way these folks talk, it’s a wonder they can get to their car in the morning through the sea of discarded plastic bags that they’re forced to machete their way through.
can I bring my bags back to the store and get my deposit back?
Maybe so, but the bottom line is that the implementation of the use of those plastic bags around me actually does cost me tax money because of the extra work that is expended in cleaning them up. So on that basis it’s legitimate for the government to collect money for their use.
Now, it makes more sense to me to tax the grocery stores handing them out. Leave it up to the grocery stores to determine if they’ll eat the tax or pass it along to their customers.
Isn't the bag cost included in the price of the goods the store sells, just like salaries, utility costs, taxes and every other expense the business incurs?
And tax what is legal.
Not too long ago, I heard a comedian say, "If the democrats could catch you in the act, they'd tax masturbation."
First thing hubby said-screamed to me in fact-yesterday on hearing this...
We’ve gotta get out of this state!
I thought he was hollering about yet another stupid gun control law like microstamping or the smart gun.
All the things that need fixing and they’re suggesting something as idiotic as this?
No wonder our state is broke.
You know, I was down there last month and didn't see that litter.
Kraft paper. Useful for many things.
People in california are a little slow they haven’t heard of biodegradable plastic yet(UPS uses it in shipping)
There is no plastic bag problem in my neck of the woods (Simi Valley), nor in my parents’ (Malibu). I pay a private company for my waste removal.
Why stop with plastic bags? I’ve seen candy bar wrappers, Doritos bags, etc... on the Freeways more than I’ve seen plastic bags.
I’m sure you’ll support a tax on those as well.
It frosts me to think that we get charged the stupid CRV on bottles and cans. They all end up in my Recycling Bin. Just a way for the government to make more money off of us. Has nothing to do with being green. And they have the gall to put the CRV value BEFORE tax. So they collect taxes on the damn CRV as well.
This is all a scam folks.
Of course not. There's a special "Employees 'Voluntary' Bag Fund" that all workers 'contribute' to. It's used to purchase the stock of bags used at the checkout counters. All Senior Management is exempt so the burden only falls on the lowly peons. I guess you never worked in the grocery industry, so it's easy to understand why you never heard of this fund.
I go to a Sam’s store and get my purchases in a cart without any bags or boxes. Next door at Walmart I get everything put in small plastic bags, too many to count. At a regular grocery store I have a choice of paper or plastic. On my last trip the “sacker” didn’t know the difference between paper and plastic, the checker had to explain it to him. She also had to show him how to double sack.
I’m sure that the stores would approve of anything that brought them more money. A fee for sacks? I can just imagine each can or box in a sack of its own.
A few stores have a place to dispose of used plastic bags. That helps responsible people dispose of the bags.
I just told you. Our dumpster is full of garbage in the used plastic grocery bags.
You are assuming that the tax money collected would actually be used to clean them up.... the government doesn't have a very good record in this regard.
If they were really serious about cleaning them up, they might offer a bounty on them, the way they did for bear or wolf skins.
That did work pretty well, as I recall, and it made compliance voluntary, which I think is a key part of the liberty we are supposed to have in this country.
I have a neighbor, a really nice guy, who doesn't officially run his business from his house but his employees gather there often during the day. The neighbor is from a Central American Country and all of his employees are from south of the border. When they have a sandwich, candy bar, bag of chips, etc. they drop the wrapper or container where they stand. Cans, bottles, cups the same when they finish. It must be a cultural thing since another neighbor from south of the border does the same thing.
I know others can be just as bad but my yard didn't look like a dump site before these people moved here. Cleaning up trash is part enforcement and part education. Don't know how we get the education part in play.
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