In August, the controversial 20-cent fee on plastic and paper grocery bags will be up for a vote. The city council passed the fee, in an effort to encourage the use of reusable grocery bags, last year; the legislation included funding to give every Seattle citizen one or more free reusable grocery bags.
The anti-fee campaign—called, deceptively, the “Coalition to Stop the Bag Tax”—is being funded exclusively by two groups: the American Chemistry Council, a plastic-industry lobbying group, which has already spent more than $238,000 on the referendum to overturn the fee, and Dallas-based 7-11 Stores, which kicked in $10,000. The pro-fee campaign, in contrast, has raised just over $3,000, most of it in in-kind contributions from environmental groups and private citizens.
In related news, Madison Market on Capitol Hill just announced it will stop giving out free disposable bags. Instead, the natural-foods co-op will charge customers ten cents for each disposable bag they use (or give them one of the used disposable bags donated by customers), with the proceeds to go toward sustainability efforts.
Find out more about why disposable bags are bad for the environment here; donate to the Seattle Green Bag campaign here.
Any word on the ban on styrofoam to-go containers? I thought that went into effect at the same time, but they’re all over town.
This is all because those Chemists at Wellesley didn’t get laid, isn’t it?
Note to self: Stop shopping at Madison Market.
Note to ECB: You’re not as shrill and/or panicked as usual. Good for you! I like how the anti-fee campaign is named deceptively. Its kind of a cute adjective coming from you.
Fnarf,
When you get a Styrofoam container it may or may not be real Styrofoam. There are containers made from petrochemicals, and containers made from corn. I assume the ones made from corn are still ok.
I know what the corn stuff looks like. There isn’t a teriyaki or pho joint in town using corn; it’s the same old stuff. Ditto the gas station across the street with their hot dog holders. Absolutely sytrofoam.
Glad, Hefty and all the rest of Big Garbage Bag’s D.C. PACs have arrived. We’re fucked.
Mae Ploy Thai Restaurant on 65th and 15th across from Zestos uses corn clamshell takeout containers, Fnarf. And I know you’ll say pho isn’t Thai and I’ll say I think we both know who is the proven racist here so just you pipe down mister.
Anyway if I see any styrofoam I’m callin’a cops.
Honestly, I don’t know why plastic-bag manufacturers are battling the tax. I’d bet it’ll actually add money to their bottom lines. Every bag I — and all the other people who reuse their plastic bags — don’t get for free at the grocery store is a bag I have to buy for my trash.
One (serious) question to all you anti-plastic, pro-tax folks: What do you put your kitchen trash in? I could be wrong, but I’d wager dollars to doughnuts the answer for most of you would be “a plastic/paper bag.”
@8,
I use plastic bags, and I haven’t reused a shopping bag for that purpose for years. How do you manage it? Those things hold very little, won’t fit in most garbage cans, and usually have holes. Do you double bag every single time or do you just risk getting liquid and other shit everywhere?
Additionally, back when I used plastic grocery bags for my garbage, I’d always wound up with way more bags than I needed. At the time, most of them went in the garbage.
I try to be careful not to tear ’em and am usually successful — probably 85 percent of them are solid. And pairing holey ones usually does the trick. Then again, most of my liquidy organic garbage doesn’t end up in the trash. They’re small, yes, but I take out the trash every couple of days anyway.
i don’t think this has a chance at passing. which is very unfortunate. the styrofoam ban probably isn’t really strictly enforced. there are exceptions, prepackaged food can still be in styrofoam and raw meat can still be sold in styrofoam for the rest of the year. also for the rest of the year any alternative to styrofoam can be used but starting 2010 they must be compostable or recyclable. (bill text: http://tiny.cc/EgpEW)
If this passes and people turn down bags for smaller purchases, won’t there be danger in falsely identifying shoplifters? I mean if I purchase a bottle of wine and then walk out of the store, I don’t want some security guard whose half paying attention thinking I’m trying to steal it.
Store owners are permitted to run down their stocks of styrofoam products over the next year. Little enforcement will be done as SPU has no dedicated inspector.
Fnarf is right that they haven’t switched over yet.
Which they should.
But … I predict the voters will overwhelmingly say NO BAG TAX. And that’s a good poop-free-lawn free-garbage-liner thing.
@13, thanks, I think that’s the answer I was looking for. Judging from some places, they’ll be handing out styro for a lot longer than a year.
@8 they bring home my groceries, then they line my garbage can (office sized), then they are topped off with cat shit and delivered to the dumpster.
i use one a day, and they are rarely full when i take them out. is something wrong with me?
Ban the plastic bags or let them be — I almost don’t care, but taxing them is a stupid idea.
you idiots! the bags are not being taxed, you’re just paying for them in a way that’s transparent (as opposed to the way you pay for them when the cost of the bags is included in the price of your milk or your bread).
fnarf, if will in seattle is for something, doesn’t that mean you should be against it? (and rightfully so?)
@3 – Yeah, stop shopping at the local market because you’re now going to have to pay for a bag you’ve already been paying for to begin with (think trickle down costs). Only now they’re telling you about it, and the proceeds are going to charity.
@8 – Almost everything can be recycled now, the city just announced their expanded recycling rules. Instead of dumping everything into a plastic bag and throwing it all away, get yourself a set of recycling bins. Once you figure out what works for you in conjunction with the city recycling, you’d be surprised at how easy it is.
@12 – Receipts. But I do bet that shoplifting increases due to more people carrying around reusable shopping bags.
@18 – Thank you for that. Everyone is so protective of these bags that for years they’ve been buying without even thinking about it.
someone here has been to europe, right? where they charge you for them at the grocery stores everywhere, for at most a dix-centieme (dime)? and yet, everyone pays it and doesn’t bat an eye. the idea is you just don’t want those things being treated as utterly invaluable. THAT’S why they become an environmental nuisance. If people have to pay for them, they save them. Yay no rubbish. But they don’t have to pay *so much* for them that it hurts anyone. (I say that as someone well below the poverty line. Really, a dime.)
Only Will in Seattle has been to Europe. We rely on him to set us straight on, well, everything. Everything.
WTF is deceptive about “Coalition To Stop The Bag Tax”
Coalition = “a temporary alliance of distinct parties, persons, or states for joint action”
Tax = “a fee charged by a government on a product, income, or activity”
I use heavy canvas grocery bags that I paid handsomely for BUT when I need to keep something safe from outside moisture, when I buy more than I expected, etc. I do not want to be TAXED for that minor oversight. I know it’s way more egregious than STEALING ALCOHOL that I can or should be able to afford but, c’mon, I had to get a dime bag earlier.
Oh, and if you legalize pot won’t that force dealers to sell to you in canvas bags or charge you a $ .20 ‘green fee’?
@22,
Yeah, a “coalition” of two entities, one of which has contributed a trifling amount of money. You bought the “Coalition of the Willing” hook, line, and sinker, didn’t you?
@23 No, I just didn’t buy into the conspiracy theory….
PS- I just farted and it was a “coalition” of butt cheeks
LOSER
How about trying to rebut my claim it isn’t deceptive?
We’ve had this in Ireland for years. It’s so ingrained now that when I go abroad and they give me a plastic bag when I buy a candy bar it’s a big surprise. After about a month, everyone here stopped complaining, all the clothes shops switched to paper, and the groceries started using re-usable bags. Now, no one cares, its the more natural thing in the world.
@19 Sweet, sweet, retarded Damien.
Tell me when the prices at Madison Market actually go DOWN because they’re now charging for bags.
When they do, I’ll be happy to rescind that portion of my statement.
Plastic bags need to be free ! to float in the air, free to swim in the sea, free to get caught in the trees and free to get injested by tour pets.
Passing a restriction on the free movement of plastic is restricting freedom itself.
If Seattle passes this freedom restriction against the right to bare free one time use bags. than we will have followed down the path of freedom restricting Ireland, Banngledesh, France, Germany, Amsterdam and plastic bag banning China.
America is not safe. Sanfransisco has banned plastic bags outright. From Vermont to Texas, from Denver to DC Amercicans are using democratic measures to restrict plastic bag use.
Yes it can truely be said that Democracy is bad for plastic.
That is why I am so happy that there are freedom protectors out there like Exxon backed plastic lobbyist the ACC who are spending big money overturning these democratic measures. I can sleep safely at night that there are big corporations who work tirelessly to make the Plastic world safe from our Democracy.
Keep Plastic bags free!
Seattle Bag Monster
http://www.seattlebagmonster.com
@19
Dear Damien, what is this “ree-seye-kling” of which you speak? You see, I have been living on a small planet orbiting Alpha Centauri for the last 50 years, so your world is strange and novel to me. I’ve got several of those plastic bins that the city provided for me, but I’ve just been filling them with feces and dead kittens.
Of course I recycle, you silly person. But you can’t recycle trash.
duckgirlie is right. And the DART stations are a lot cleaner as a result.
it is easy to steal wine if you put it in a bag first
Should Erica ‘Shoplifter’ Barnett really be allowed to report on shopping bags?
Does the Stranger have any conflict of interests standards?
I’m pretty sure the Health Department won’t let a store supply used bags to customers. The customer has to bring in their own bag.