Posted on 04/15/2009 6:12:47 AM PDT by econjack
California, always seeking to be a trendsetter on environmental policy, is weighing a proposal to charge 25 cents for every paper or plastic bag distributed at grocery stores, pharmacies and convenience stores. The money raised would go into a state fund used to clean up trash and prevent litter related to what the bill calls “single-use” bags.
The bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, says 25 cents a bag is high enough to have a real impact on consumer behavior. The fee would be waived for some low-income Californians.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
How is a supermarket checkout clerk supposed to know if someone is poor enough to get exempted?
Here’s another way to escape the tax - reuse the bags.
There will be yet another expansive government bureaucracy complete with forms, hearings and administrative review boards to issue “Bag Tax Exemption Certificates”.
i have an idea....whay don’t all states or the federal gov’t just have all employers send the employees checks directly to them....cut out the middle man....then they can buy us each a home/car/medical/food/clothing all the essentials that we need in life...no fuss no muss..
In Denmark, shopping bags at the grocery are an extra $.50 each
This has a marked effect on consumer behavior.
This’ll go tough on WalMart shoppers.....If you buy six things, it seems like you walk out with 8 or 9 of those flimsy bags.
The bone head government is always behind the times. Smart stores offer a ticket that goes into a weekly drawing of 100.00 if you bring your own bags. The stores pay alot for paper bags.
Yeah. You reuse the plastic bag by placing it over the head of a liberal politician and reducing his carbon footprint.
Anything coming out of California is suspect, but I remember my home state of Michigan as the first in the nation to introduce a returnable bottle/can law.
It did have a remarkable effect on litter all over the state.
The bottle law in Michigan had the potential to be a zero-net effect on state revenue. If 100% of the bottles/cans were returned, the state couldn’t depend on it for revenue. I really don’t know what Michigan does with the variance.
However, since this is a straight tax, how is this revenue guaranteed to be directed towards litter control, and not another injection into the general fund?
Perhaps they’ll issue “Get Out of Jail Free” cards.
Because, of course, SOME animals are better than others.
Every poor person will have an "I'm a poor person" card, issued by the California Department of Poor People, a new 15,000 person agency created to administer the cards. This does not include the CA Dept of Poor People enforcement agency, the CA Dept of Poor Person Fraud Unit, or the CA Dept of Accounting and Tax Collection Services.
LOL.
I guess pollution caused by the economically challenged doesn’t count. OK. In a few months we’ll be pollution free because we’ll all be poor.
These plastic bags were introduced years ago as an alternative to paper - to save trees and to promote a greener world. Good grief! Come to think of it, those were the days of global cooling.
correction/ duh: Some animals are more EQUAL than others.
Costco has this figured out. Most of the items a supermarket sells come delivered to them in cardboard boxes. These same boxes can be used to box things up on the way out as the net volume is the exactly the same. Not only can stores stop buying bags, they can offload their box disposal costs onto the customer.
They are the fat ones.
Spec's does the same thing. It's convenient for all parties, but I feel so wrong when I'm carrying top shelf liquor in a Taaka or Everclear box.
No the way to escape the tax is to tell the checker to put everything you buy into the shopping cart unbagged and then ask for help out to your car. Then let the box-person (or whatever the heck they are called these days) load the groceries into the boxes you keep in the trunk of your car.
That figure is pure unadulterated Bull-crap. You'd think they have 25 people running around the state looking for plastic bags and they pay them each a million dollars a year. And the municipalities have 300 of these people.
All costs are already on the customer, this is a way to stick it to the customers again.
LOL You win. Best Reply!
I don't think stores have "box disposal costs".
Ever seen a large flatbed truck loaded up with bales of crushed boxes?
I'm pretty sure they actually sell those boxes to recyclers.
What about frozen products like,veggies, ice cream, etc.? In other words things that might melt just a little and seep through the paper bag?
I bet those box compactor machines cost a half million dollars, not to mention the insurance costs to cover the occasional worker that gets juiced.
Possibly manufacturers could switch to standard reusable pods that the trucks bring back when they come for product pick ups. The pods could be designed to help robots stock the store shelves at night.
You mean they take the box out of the recycling circuit?
Instead of sending them back to the manufacturer to be ground up and made into new cardboard boxes they send them out and customers who in turn put them in the landfill?
It actually says:
The money raised would go into a state slush fund used to pay for anything and everything except to clean up trash and prevent litter related to what the bill calls “single-use” bags.
How Right you are, Brother!
Well, it has to be admitted, discarded plastic bags that end up tangled in trees and bushes are a real eyesore. OTOH, if plastic grocery bags are banned or taxed, I’ll just end up having to buy plastic bags to put the kitchen garbage in anyway, so it really won’t affect the amount of them I send to landfills. And plastic bags are a really efficient form of packaging - it takes way less energy and materials to make a plastic grocery bag than a paper one, never mind reusable cloth bags which you never seem to have with you when you need one, or enough of them for all your groceries.
LOL!
Most people's home garbage bills have doubled to pay for trash recycling centers. The boxes are just used an extra step before getting recycled.
Price is one of the best indicators of actual greenness. If something costs twice as much as it did before, it is probably using more total energy and emitting more pollution than it did before. I doubt most recycling makes actual green sense.
One of my first jobs was as a box boy at a grocery store. When we stocked the shelves, the cardboard boxes were thrown into the “box bin” and customers could ask for their groceries to be “boxed” instead of bagged. Got rid of the boxes and saved on paper bags... as this was WAY before plastic bags were ever thought of.
There were busy days when the box bin was completely empty and we had no choice but use bags. A LOT of customers specifically requested boxes as they were more convenient than flimsy paper bags for the large weekly grocery purchase. That was when people made “shopping lists” and made “trips to the grocery store” on planned days. No such thing as “convenience” stores then. Also, no 24 hour stores.
Now most grocery stores have large compactors or incinerators (gasp!!) behind them for all the boxes and packaging that they throw away. So this could actually be a good thing.
Except for the unintended consequences of virtually extinguishing the market for plastic bags and thus eliminating the planned tax income stream— which will then have to be replaced by another tax or an increase of an existing one.
I think most cardboard from the big box stores like HD, WalMart etc, goes from the store back to the box mill and is ground up and re-made into new shipping boxes.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but when you drive around the back of these stores and see the big bundles of used boxes, they are there waiting pickup and delivery back to the factory.
They buy their groceries with food stamps?
-PJ
This is nonsense.
The money would just go into the general fund, like all the other taxes.
Besides, I take my used store bags back to the store to be recycled in their bins. Do I get my 25 cents back?
What if I use those bags as garbage pail liners? Does that now make them double-use bags, making me now exempt from the tax?
-PJ
Will the supermarkets sell plastic wrap, plastic ziploc bags, garbage bags, bathroom trash bags and add a tax to those, too? Oh, and what about tape to wrap packages and videos and DVDs? CA will tax you somehow.
I heard this morning on the news that CA was the No. 1 taxed state, New Jersey was No. 2. AZ was No. 41 and Alaska was No. 50.
I’m so glad I left So.Cal. eight years ago.
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