In a vote city council president Richard Conlin called “ministerial,” not discretionary, the city council voted today to put a referendum overturning the city’s 20-cent fee on disposable grocery bags on the August 18, 2009 ballot. Environmentalists who support the fee—easy to spot at this past weekend’s Green Festival by their elaborate costumes made of hundreds of plastic bags—are already gearing up to fight the American Chemistry Council-funded campaign to eliminate the fee. Their campaign will focus on the fact that “Big Oil”—i.e., companies like Exxon and DuPont, which the Chemistry Council represents—is pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into an effort to keep plastic bags free. Consultant Christian Sinderman and fundraiser Colby Underwood are both working on the campaign against the referendum, which is supported by People for Puget Sound, the Sierra Club, and other local environmental groups.
Bag Fee Vote on August 18
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This thread makes me want to go choke a salmon.
Or a baby harbor seal.
i choked a chicken during every reply
“Fuck ’em.”
Well Elenchos, what about all the douche bag dead end losers who wouldn’t know how to start a biz, the same losers the small biz owners have to hire, where will they go?
“veterans who gave you your freedom”
Now who sounds like a whiney Republican. BTW cleaning shitters on a frigate doesn’t impress anyone.
The only ones who bitch and whine more than small business owners are farmers. If they’re so miserable with their lives, they should quit. Or move to a red state if the business climate there is so dandy. Seattle has been a hotbed of socialism for generations. And I thought clever businessmen researched a market before moving into it — doh!
Frigates, the Navy, and whatnot — these things I know nothing of. I don’t know why they were brought up. Nothing to do with me, that’s for sure! I don’t know why Navy veterans are still being insulted in an attempt to help the chemical lobby protect their profits. It’s really sad for me to be further attacked for saying that those veterans don’t deserve this disrespect.
Wait… farmers? What?
e, you know I’m normally with you 100%, but… farmers?
Absolutely, FARMERS. They are about the worst violators of environmental regulations you could meet in a day’s march. Water stealin’, cow-shit-dumpin’-in-the-river, worker-safety-regulations-violatin’ varmints. And it’s only worse if they are christians, because then they’re sure god will forgive them for being in the Mr. Green Jeans Mafia.
bangs has a point.
Just say NO to social engineering through taxation.
You know how stores can avoid the whole hassle of keeping track of how many bags they use?
Don’t give out plastic bags. Really.
In Germany stores will ring up your shit for you and then you’re on your own. Don’t have a bag or a backpack or something with you? Hope you’ve got enough arms, dumbass.
Erica will it be easier to steal wine with you own bag??? Maybe some cute wine bottle decoration on it.
@60: This joke was pretty lame the first time it was used, and it’s already been repeated at least three times before in this thread. Kill yourself. You fail at life.
The $ collected from this bag tax is supposed to pay for information mailings and collatoral about recycling and reusable bags. Most of this junk mail just ends up in the garbage or floating around in the street. So, this is a tax on garbage with the sole purpose of creating more garbage. Yay for the retards!
who broke the story that it was the ACC behind the petition campaign?
The argument that 20 cents a bag is not enough to affect behavior is just plain idiotic. If I didn’t bring my own bags on a trip to the grocery store where we do a big shop, that could be $4-5. I am certainly not “the poorest”, but I also don’t like to spend $5, when it’s really fucking simple for me to not spend $5.
Case in point, the grocery store Aldi charges you for bags, if you don’t bring your own (and to the person saying OMG, it would be sooo hard for grocers to figure out how to do this, maybe you should, you know, talk to Aldi since they’ve been doing it for years). I don’t go there very often, but, when I do, you can be sure that I remember to bring my own bags.
Stretching back @33 “bag fee will *drastically* reduce oil consumption & landfill” ? As a city communications employee even i couldn’t make those two turds fly.
The city’s garbage heads to an eastern Oregon landfill in a train over a mile long, with SIX departures every week. Pretty large volume to get your mind around, huh?
Its not clear to me how businesses will be hurt because of the bag fee (other than bag manufacturers.) Are people going to stop eating because they had to pay $0.20 for a bag- a food boycott? Maybe there will be some public health benefits from the bag fee that no one expected.
@66. Agreed. It’s not like I would suddenly buy less groceries or less stuff at the pharmacy (hmmm… well, I could buy this cold medicine, but darn that bag tax, I think I’ll just suffer through it).
It may introduce an additional financial and logistical complexity for stores (a complexity that other stores have already learned how to deal with), but it shouldn’t hurt their bottom line. Particularly if people’s behavior actually does change — if 75% of people bring their own bags, then that’s 75% fewer bags the store has to purchase and give away.
@66,
Not to be argumentative (ha!), but if you’re a poor person who rides the bus, and forgot your disposable bag(s) and need to shop on the way home – the .20 per bag fee probably will affect your buying choices (that’s two top ramens on sale, for example), and yes, impose an actual hardship on you.
But all of the self-righteous greenwash types do get to feel better about their pure selves.
Ramen are 7 for a dollar.
@68: Because top ramen is so hard to carry?
Erica is a thief and deserves as much hassling about it as can come.
@71: And you’re a loser, but you’re probably used to hearing about it all the time.
Hey Greg @61 I am here laying in a pool of blood. Happy???
@61 ridicule a shoplifter and you deserve to die. nice. you should ask erica on a date. you could steal some wine together and if you get busted by security you could shoot them dead. because they would deserve it, right? don’t mess with a shoplifter and expect anything less then dying.
@59 that isn’t true. you’re not the only person who has been to germany. they always ask you upfront if you want to buy a bag. you might have been too stupid to understand, since they ask in german.
but yeah, anyone criticizing erica for shoplifting deserves to DIE. they should KILL THEMSELVES. um, ok. i guess some aspects of germany are appealing to you, you IRRATIONAL NAZI FUCK.
A 20 cent tax on plastic bags doesn’t encourage shoplifting. That’s CRAZY talk. If you’re willing to pay, and you need a bag, you’ll shell out 20 cents. If you’re going to steal something big enough that you need a bag, you’ve got ambitions beyond saving 20 pennies.
I support the tax, but then I hardly ever use bags anyway.
@75
What is you name? I find that anonymity provides certain people of a dickish nature with much more courage than they would have otherwise. You are a coward. A spineless, petulant, unwanted fuck stain.
the law is a piece of badly written shit
vote no – and then – let’s who are pure and undefiled greens – let’s write the perfect law
the greenie gropeies do what Conlin tells them- this law – repeat, is a piece of ill conceived shit
start over, vote no
@77 um ok what’s your point? Facebook profile link, please. I bet if you REALLY told us who you were you would not have the “courage” to call some anonymous commentator a spineless fuck stain. I mean look at how pathetic you are, JUSTIN, calling out the trolls, WOW, you are our HERO.
there are bags small enough to fit in a pouch that attach to your keychain. stores need to start selling them and instruct their patrons do as such.
make things easier for the tiny consumer brain to comprehend.
no matter what anyone thinks they’re talking about, plastic bags are VERY detrimental to the environment and there are litterally billions of them on earth. you can read about it, and also just you know, use some common sense? try to imagine yourself standing in the middle of the mountain that contains all of the plastic bag and other plastic waste on this planet.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/0…
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg…
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/T…