Blogs
Aug 19, 2009 at 11:31 am
Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
Editors' Picks
is a proud member of the
network
network
All contents © Noisy Creek, Inc.
1101 East Pike St. Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98122
1101 East Pike St. Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98122
Obviously, it doesn't bother people to buy tofu in plastic tubs that contain enough plastic to make tens of bags.
How about a ban?
We're currently less progressive than Edmonds.
The city should just grow some balls and BAN the bags if they are so bad for the environment. Don't say they are bad-bad-bad, but somehow less bad if you pay us a quarter....
BTMFA! BTMFA! BTMFA! BTMFA!
I am environmentally aware and active. This tax will not work to protect the environment. I think some people in Seattle want it just to make Seattle look more sophisticated than other cities.
This will cost the poor and hungry more a little more money than they already have. It's just a bad and ineffective idea. Me saying this does not make me want to eat plastic fish dinners or see plastic garbage whirls in the Pacific. That notion is ridiculous.
My idea is to sponsor an organization, like the Hempfest folks to make thousands of hemp bags of varying sizes and give then out for free to a dollar to everyone in Seattle as supplies last. This will further promote the case for hemp products in our society. If my money goes directly to this then I will feel more secure that this is the correct action.
You all have been "DUPED™" by giant evil powers! You are more stupid than you think! There is only ONE way to look at this.
SUCKERS!!!!
or you can squeal like a tight assed prison whore.
the choice is yours.
Just because so many sloggers wait for Dan Savage to tell them what to believe, doesn't mean it's a widespread phenomenon about all issues with all people.
Ban, tax, whatever. It will still lose because of a bunch of douchebags with shitloads of money.
I do like the hemp bag idea, though. I bet more folks would bring bags to the store if they could get a hold of some that weren't total pieces of shit like most of the "cloth" bags (that are actually made of plastic) out there.
Unless, of course, they support an outright ban and treat this as half-assed. In which case, good for them!
The other possibilities that come to mind are that they are stupid or are just plain assholes.
First, we need an overall, long-term environmental policy coming from the City leadership, not soundbites. The earth is dying, and what do the electeds in Seattle have to offer? A bag tax. Brilliant! We need some political leadership and vision with some big ideas. This rinky dink soundbite policy will not carry voters. They might however, sign onto a real plan that has some real teeth.
Second, it's a tax. Do you really expect people to vote to increase taxes on themselves right now? Probably not the smartest time to try to pass a new tax.
Next, the campaign was basically run by fremont white hippies. The plastic bag monster, or whatever the hell that thing was at all the festivals was just plain annoying and I'm sure put many people off. This thing seemed more like some recent post college stoners had an idea after a Dave Mathews show than a serious plan for the city.
We need Seattle politicians to show some leadership. Ban the plastic bags already. Stop wasting our time and money on votes like this. Develop a real environmental plan for this city that fits into an overall vision for the next 50 years.
Also, seriously, what's next for the Green Bag campaign. The bag tax wasn't just a great idea, it's desperately needed and inevitable, as illustrated by by China banning plastic bags earlier this year. When China takes initiative on an environmental issue, you know it's gotta be severe.
Get real and do a Ban on Plastic Bags instead.
Geesh. And progressives like to call conservatives closed-minded.
Plastic bags are distributed pollution because every consumer becomes an entry point for the plastic to enter an ecosystem. Existing attempts to centralize their cleanup (via recycling) have failed, resulting in their getting into and fouling ecosystems. The bag fee can fix the plastic pollution, and does nothing for the paper (production) pollution.
The rationale for the bag fee is that the plastic bags weren't going into the recycling, weren't getting into the garbage, and were getting into the ecosystem and fouling beaches, and streets, and birds, and, etc. That rationale fails for paper bags. Don't tie paper bags to plastic, because if you want people to vote for things that inconvenience them, it needs to make sense.
If the bag fee were an outright ban on plastic bags, and it applied to all merchants, I'd have voted for it. I would have also voted for a deposit on bags, like many states do for soda cans, because then it creates a market for hobos and children to clean up litter.
This proposed bag fee was poorly designed to be annoying and half-assed. Try again.
Ban em and stop whining.
Thinking about this terrified me because I feel like I start to understand what all the anti-public plan people are thinking. I am not comfortable with that.
Seattle should pass a paper bag ban as well or else we're just destroying the environment in one way instead of another. No, recycling and composting doesn't make disposable bags okay. Paper bags are more environmentally ruinous than plastic bags before they enter the waste stream.
"The city should just grow some balls and BAN the bags if they are so bad for the environment. Don't say they are bad-bad-bad, but somehow less bad if you pay us a quarter...."
I like getting the bags. I use them as packing material, lining the garbage cans, for pet waste, taking them on trips, esp for wet swimsuits (yr cloth bag isn't going to work for that).
One, grocery stores could go back to cutting a nickel or dime off yr bill if you bring yr own bag (some used to do this, the ones I use now don't). That would be an incentive.
Two, at convenience stores they could get in the habit of asking "Do you need a bag?" If it's not automatic, people could reconsider and say no.
I recycle the bags I don't use.
Honestly, I'm surprised the ACC wasted $1.4 million promoting a no vote, given they had an easy 51-53% without any effort for the reason above. That was the dumbest move on their part.
I mean, the last time he was writing for a living it was writing down your dinner order. This all must be very exciting for his irrational idealism.
So don't get too up in arms, fellow citizens. Just acknowledge Holden's angle for what it is: a desperate play at advocacy journalism.
Hey dude, your angle failed? What's your NEXT ANTI-SOMETHING campaign gonna be???
Also, the right for stores to pocket some percentage of the fees for administration costs could easily lead to corruption at dishonest stores/chains and unnecessary tracking for everyone else. How would this work in relation to self-serve checkstands? Would people be on an honor system? Would they be required to modify the systems to count the # of bags removed?
Banning the bags removes all these issues and ostensibly tackles the real problem -- plastic waste.We've seen the Washington State Liquor Board have to raise prices to stay self supporting (?!?). I can't imagine this would turn out any better
What it would have done, though, is begin shifting our social consciousness away from the current sense of entitlement to waste. That, and it would have been an AVOIDABLE tax, raising revenue for the city that will now likely come from some other less-avoidable source.
Framing the argument for the tax simply as a great way to reduce waste was a mistake on the part of the proponents of the law.
Little did they know that 54-58% of the population agreed with them.
The bag tax wouldn't help the situation. If you think it would where is your evidence. If it's because you "think it would help" or "because it makes sense" then you're wrong. It hasn't changed behavior any place it has been implemented.
If you want to say different then give an example. I'd be delighted to hear of it.
"Duped." Not really. Less prone to make stupid decisions about things I find "Icky", yes that's me. Who are you?