The harsh economic times means less tax dollars collected causing cutbacks in public jobs and services and attempts by governments to find new ways of creating revenue.
In New York City, the mayor is suggesting a tax on plastic bags.
That's right, plastic bags.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to tax you 5 cents each time they put an item you purchase at a store in a plastic bag.
Five cents for each bag of grocery.
Five cents when you want to hide from the prying eyes of passersby what you purchased at a drug store.
Five cents may not seem like a lot of money. But it can add up.
His honor believes five cents times X amount of bags can generate some $85 million dollars for the city of New York.
It brings new meaning and, probably, a new answer, to the question, "plastic or paper?" at the checkout counter.
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Comments
And a major supermarket chain here announced 2 weeks ago it's fast-forwarding the agenda by beginning right now to charge 5 cents for every plastic bag at the check-out to help reduce the amount of plastic used.
However, here in Toronto it's not a revenue-generating agenda that's leading the charge. It's all for a green cause and to motivate consumers to change their habits and bring reusable bags when they shop.
(The same vote included a ban on the sale of plastic water bottles at civic centres, effective immediately, and on all municipal premises from city hall to golf courses by 2011.)
That scene in American Beauty aside, plastic bags are an eyesore. Reusable bags are sturdier, hold more, tend not to wind up as litter and it's really not that hard to keep a few in your car.
Now, if only we could do something about the Tim Horton's cups in Canada. . .
I can hear some customers now though. "Hey, put more stuff in that plastic bag--don't use so many, etc." Then, when those flimsy plastic bags break before they get to the car, they will blame the clerk or store.
Charging for plastic bags is a step in the right direction. I wish our local politicians would be that brave.
As for the plastic drinking containers ... I certainly understand the disposal problem, but a ban will just drive people who were drinking healthy water back to unhealthy soda pop.
It seems like most places now sell the 99 cent canvas shopping bags, and as a pedestrian/bus rider, I must say they're well worth the money. The ones I've had have lasted over a year and they're still going strong, and unlike the plastic bags, they're comfortable to carry over long distances.
I still get enough plastic bags to use as garbage can liners, and we re-use them at work for customers who buy small photos and carry them out.
In Colorado, where I live, the reusables are very common and there is talk about the "pay for" solution, but I don't think it is a tax, rather a reimbursement to the store, which after all, has paid for the bags in the first place. I know Whole Foods and Wild Oats give part of the proceeds to green causes, however.
I don't think that the bags should be as ubiquitous as they are, that is for sure!
Cloth bags are easy. You just pile them into the cart and things to in them. They have nice handles, and you can even buy some with the ability to keep your food cold so that you can do other things before heading home with the ice cream.
When I was living in the ex-USSR, back in the late 1980s, I was sometimes asked for a favor: did I have any plastic bags...to sell? Or give away? People used their briefcase or old canvas shopping bags, so a plastic bag was a luxury Western item.
When my Soviet ex-mother-in-law came to visit me in France, -her first time ever in the West-, in 1990, she decided that the best "memorabilia" she could bring back her girlfriends in Moscow were... empty plastic mineral bottles and plastic grocery bags. She even made money selling some when she returned.
Other times, other customs; other locations, other point of views.
I've been bringing my own shopping bags for years, and more.
Plastic doesn't take thousands of years to break down; it NEVER breaks down. Ever. It breaks up into smaller pieces, but it is still the same stuff and never becomes biomass EXCEPT when it is consumed by a particular type of microbe.
A scientist in Ireland discovered a microbial solution that will actually break down polypropylene plastic (number 5 in the triangle) and a young boy in Canada recently discovered a microbial solution that will break down polyethylene (number 1) in a matter of months.
The catch of course is that a strong enough microbial solution is highly unlikely to occur in nature, and when the microbes do consume the plastic they release a small amount of carbon dioxide.
Anyway, due to the life span of plastics, I have taken many drastic steps to eradicate them from my lifestyle. I now bake my own bread, avoid foods and beverages that come in plastic packaging, and even use wooden toothbrushes.
I'm also making a documentary film about plastic waste.
Anyway, great post!
I make them carry the heavy stuff.
Well, visit the salad sneeze bar. Look around. Shop`left.
Stuff raisons. mashed potato's, pitted olives, and Swiss?
Fill the pockets, and use the lavatory. Have bon appetite.
Lynda in Denver
Hell, the number of poor people that would be scouring the countryside for the bottles would go a long way to save on social services...
The repubs have wanted to kill our bottle law ever sense it started but it's the best welfare plan the republicans could have ever come up with... Sad to say...
In England, we had "green" boxes and special grocery carts that took them. They were plastic crates, I used mine for years and still have them, now they're storing sports and gardening equipment. They were easy to clean and durable.
The advantage of the boxes is that you can tell your customer is not hiding something under them, unlike the pile of used bags I used to take the grocery store (before security got tighter and I got tired of proving that I'm stealing).
The problem with reusable glass bottles is transportation costs. They add up. They costs might be lower if all bottles were standard sizes, so a used coke bottle wouldn't look funny with a beer label on it. But plastic is really light.