Community Post

Bag tax vote in just a couple of weeks…

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Hi everyone. I’ve talked to many folks in the neighborhood about this and was wondering what the online world thought of the proposed plastic bag tax. Saw there were a few postings last year on it – do people feel the same? Differently? I’m all for helping the environment but I re-use those plastic bags on a regular basis!

0 thoughts on “Bag tax vote in just a couple of weeks…”

  1. Maybe you’re very responsible with the bags you get at the grocery store, but there are many problems with them overall. First, they are made from oil, a limited resource already. We use nearly a million plastic and paper bags in the Seattle every day, the vast majority of them plastic. When they’re recycled, they’re “downcycled” into lower quality plastic, and rather than being recycled here, they are often shipped overseas for recycling. But most bags don’t even get recycled. Many end up getting washed out into the ocean where they break into small pieces and are often mistaken by wildlife for food. In the North Pacific Gyre, there is now more plastic than plankton in the water. It’s decimating the albatross population on Midway Island.

    So, clearly, I support the bag tax. It will help people to consider the costs those bags actually carry. It will likely lead to fewer plastic bags being used. If you’d like more info, you can go to http://greenbagcampaign.org/ for details.

  3. I also am very good about recycling the plastic bags I get, but you only have to look around the streets a little bit to see where many end up. 20 cents seems like a reasonable “convenience fee” for plastic bags, especially when reusable bags are so cheap and available everywhere. I often end up using my “grocery bags” to haul around all sorts of things on unrelated outings.

    Seems like it would have been simpler to just ban plastic bags outright, and allow paper bags, untaxed. Probably would have a much better chance of passing.

  4. I am wondering why these can’t be used by grocery stores if they must use plastic bags. You can buy EcoSafe “compostable plastic bags” at Bartells’ Drug store or at the drug store in Renton (the name eludes me, the large store on the main drag). They come in small, medium and large sizes. This would solve the problem. People can have their plastic bags and they are environmentally friendly, ie, compostable! Hey Seattle City Council and Grocers’ Association!

  5. The compostable bags are designed to decompose in the high temperatures of large scale composters, like Cedar Hills.

    In my experiment, a YEAR in a domestic composter (which reduced all vegetable waste to lovely soil) had no effect on compostable plastic bags:

    http://millerparkseattle.blogspot.com/2008/10/biodegradable-

    I’d like to see actual results before we adopt these measures: anyone ever seen a spoon compost?

    andrew the sceptic

  6. I’m a dog owner and reuse every plastic bag that comes into my house. That said, I’m 100% in favor of the bag tax to reduce the stray bags on the streets and in the water.

    A story from the southern hemisphere is enlightening. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison, one of the things that surprised him was seeing the large amount of roadside trash, notably the plastic bags that tumbleweed around. South Africa has since instituted a bag tax and the roads have cleaned up considerably. Now people know to bring their own bags or pay for ones that are sturdy enough to be reused. There’s less thoughtless bagging of one or two easily hand-carried items. Can’t we do that here?