Seattle to impose disposable bag sin tax
A little over a year ago, San Francisco made headlines by banning plastic bags and styrofoam containers from restaurants, grocery stores, and pharmacies.
This week, Seattle proposed that they similarly ban polystyrene take-out food containers, but veered wildly from San Francisco's lead in proposing a disposable bag "sin tax".
Seattle large supermarkets and pharmacies will be required to charge 20 cents per disposable bag used, regardless of whether that bag is paper or plastic. To encourage people to use reusable bags, Seattle is hoping to send a reusable bag to every person in Seattle.
Personally, I'm disappointed with the laziness of this proposal. You can tell that the Seattle politicians saw an opportunity for revenue generation, and went in the direction that gave them a $10 million dollar windfall rather than taking the right step and banning plastic bags altogether.
"The problem with a ban is that all it does is leave people without a choice," said City Council President Richard Conlin.
Isn't that point, Richard? People are fundamentally lazy. If you want to make major strides towards altering people's behaviors, charging them another dollar for five bags at the register is not going to make them think twice about changing their behavior. In my opinion, forcing the issue with an outright ban is the right way.
I just did my current event for Social Studies on this!
Posted by: greenteen | April 06, 2008 at 10:19 PM
Where is the dog-walking community on this issue?
Posted by: | April 09, 2008 at 12:12 PM