I used to feel like a ridiculous hippie for carrying my own bags to the store, but in the year-ish I have been doing so it's become really common, so common that now I feel shamed when I don’t bring them.
Some stores around here even give you a little discount -- 5 cents or so -- based on the number of bags you bring. Makes sense to me – not only does it keep bags out of landfills but it saves the store a little money.
Which is why I think Seattle's proposed "bag tax" is a horrible, horrible idea. It would tax stores at the rate of 20 cents PER BAG for each plastic bag used. Which doesn’t sound too terrible, until you consider the impact this would have on low income consuers already squeezed badly by higher food costs and fuel costs. When you have to plan your food costs very carefully, getting socked with an extra dollar or so to carry the stuff home in something other than your pockets would really hurt.
If you have to take the bus to get to a grocery store and/or walk several blocks there, you may not have a convenient way to schlep along several bags – or what if you're stopping at the market on the way home from work and don’t have your bags with you?
Not only that, but 63 percent of Seattelites oppose the tax. Some don’t think it goes far enough, and most common plastic grocery bags are made from #2 plastic, which is widely recyclable. And still others point out that most people reuse the bags anyway instead of throw them out --- for pet waste or to line trash bags, for example. I know in our house my husband gets a little nervous when I haven’t been collecting enough "poop bags" at the store.
Socking people with a heavy tax doesn’t seem fair – but giving them an incentive to not use the bags does. I'll be interested to see how this plays out in Seattle.
