Posted on 06/03/2015 7:26:53 PM PDT by Spktyr
Plastic bags will soon be free again in Dallas.
In a vote of 10 to 4, Dallas City Council members voted to repeal the bag fee passed in 2014.
Grocery Bag Makers File Lawsuit Over Dallas Fee
Last year's resolution added a $.05 fee for each single-use plastic bag used by shoppers to encourage people to use reusable bags and to reduce litter.
The ban went into effect Jan. 1.
"We're gonna take this nick on the chin," said Dallas City Councilman Dwaine Caraway, who originally pushed for the ban, after Wednesday's vote. "Y'all celebrate. Just celebrate. But when it's time to raise taxes, just remember, this vote today was one where you're taking Dallas backwards."
The bag fee ends on Monday, June 8.
Plastic Bag Fee Begins Thursday in Dallas
Paying for plastic never pleased many shoppers.
"I never did like it," said shopper Laverne Hood. "I just think it's unnecessary. I mean, it's ridiculous if you ask me."
Many small business owners also applaud the fee's repeal and the extra regulations that went with it.
"I don't have to worry about it. I don't have to worry about looking for another company to get my bags straight. It's something we have to go through too, you know," said Trent La, with Food Rite grocery store.
Bag manufacturers even sued the city over the ordinance, and large grocery chains were never big fans, either.
"We've gotten a lot of feedback from customers who, 1. did not like the fee, and 2. were confused by the fee," said Gary Huddleston, with Kroger.
Now environmentalists are disappointed the fee is going away after just six months on the books.
"It was working just fine to reduce litter and trash and pollution," said Zac Trahan, with the Texas Campaign for the Environment. "People should always bring their own bags when they go shopping. That was the point of the ordinance in the first place."
Many stores hope they do, too.
"Throughout this fee we've seen more and more customers bring in their bags, and we like that," Huddleston said.
Also, this fee was proposed as a method of cleaning up the city, the guy who proposed the fee and got it pushed through just revealed it was really just revenue generation.
The liberal, university town I live in, in Oregon, banned plastic bags, and charged .05 for a paper bag.
If I didn't have a re-useable bag at the grocery store, the Prius driving, earth-worshipping libs would glare at me in line as I bought 5 paper bags.
I just told them that I used the paper bags so I could use them to burn my trash outside.
The shocked looks were well worth the extra quarter.
Torn feelings here, while I Hate the Walmart plastic bag being ubiquitous and known as the “Texas Flag”
Is placing a fiscal gun to manufacturers heads the answer?
Why not just bust litterers?
On the few times that I've ventured out into Dallas (like the recent trip to MicroCenter), the bag fee ALWAYS came as a shock to me....
Glad to know it will be over soon...
Update: I have since moved to a red county in another blue state where plastic bags are aplenty.
Some ladies at our church knit them into blankets for the homeless. They look pretty awesome and supposedly are great at insulation on cold nights.
The plastic bags???
(Sorry, I just think that sounds a little out of place...)
Yep. The bags.
The reason being because then there would be a disproportionate number of ‘people of color’ arrested/ticketed/cited.
The part of town worst affected by this is the same part of town that refuses to allow a levee to be constructed to protect them from a flooding Trinity River, claiming that the levee would cut their residents off from ‘opportunities’ - despite there being several bridges in the area for use by pedestrians and motor vehicles. Then, when the Trinity does flood, they complain about how they have no flood protection.
I recycle them properly - I use them for disposing of trash and cat waste/used litter in the dumpster.
The irony, of course, is that it was the same kind of leftist idiot that made us move away from paper bags “to save the trees!” to plastic bags in the first place, decades back. Now we find out the plastic bags are supposedly worse for the environment and the paper bags are far more bio-friendly. Whoops.
Revenueing bastards
bttt
With the leftist idea of making food and other stuff unaffordable, bags won’t be needed anywhere near as much.
We use them to line our waste paper baskets in the house and well as numerous other things.
Well, money was never really the objective — it was implemented for behavior modification.
To wit: “People should always bring their own bags when they go shopping. That was the point of the ordinance in the first place.”
I reuse them nearly all of the time—in fact I save them—they make excellent doggie pick up bags, as someone mentioned. I also use them as litter bags in my car, and to put small stuff in when I’m packing up to go on a trip.
I live in Austin. Some time ago the city council banned stores from providing any single use bags, paper or plastic. I bought a gross of plastic bags on Amazon. Very cheap. When I go grocery shopping I just grab a handful from the trunk, where I keep them, and hand them over to the cashier when I check out.
Cutting off access to “opportunities?”
There are no less than FOUR bridges that span the full width of the mighty Trinity—I recommend the Dallas-FtWorth Turnpike.
I hear about this “Horseshoe Project”, now underway, that aims to rebuild that, and the rest of the bridges into Downtown...
The guy who proposed the ban/fee and got it passed in the first place? Yeah, he just admitted it was for revenue with behavior modification as a a distant second reason.
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