Good.

No more paid signature gatherers. I was against them, then I wavered, and now I'm definitely against them.

Whatever happened to banning Styrofoam containers? Here in the home we get served single servings of ice cream in little Styrofoam containers. I feel like shit eating out of the thing, but I needs me some ice cream.

Oh, and those 99 cent bags at QFC fall apart after a few uses (and the plastic bottoms break apart. Spend $8 and get something sturdy (you might even find something sturdy at Goodwill or Value Village).

People can't be trusted to make good choices. They require coercion and the 2x4.

please take your reuseable shopping bags with you when you go christmas shopping! i was seriously the only person of all the people i saw downtown today who was using them...

This referendum will pass not so much because it is well-funded or because of the merits of the issue itself, but because there are many, many residents of Seattle who are sick of being nickeled and dimed by a city government that is increasingly out-of-touch with its citizens, and who will seize the opportunity to cast an essentially harmless F.U vote.

Fuck the environment, I have to carry my groceries in and I'm NOT buying some pansy-ass "canvas bag" to do it. That's just stupid. You won't be around to see what impact you leave. Why do you care?

Get real. ..or at least real-ish. Other generations have left crap. Ours is no worse.

#2

Who cares what you think - TAKE NOTE - the Supreme Court of Washington ruled in a very strong opinion that labor is labor is labor - duh - and hence hiring for this job is totally legal. Duh.

How about eliminating the highest paid paper shufflers called campaign staff? Of course that is silly since they are professionals, attack the worker bees, the grunts on the sidewalk trying to make a few bucks at a hard job.

Three cheers for the Supremes ... and you sound like a whiner to boot ... is there merit in the issue on the ballot is really what counts. And vote accordingly, duh.

Adam, clearly this is something that you get very emotional over. I'm sorry to have brought that out. No doubt you are correct that no one at all cares what I think, and you can rest easy knowing that my opposition to paid signature gatherers will have no influence at all. Plus, you're right: I'm a whiner! Which totally proves how right you are.

If at this point you are still hyperventilating. press the button for the orderly and they will assist you.

The city hall crowd who voted this in were on bad crack.

The law is a piece of shit, designed by silly shitters.

I support green stuff 100 per cent, and have recycled and reused everything possible for my entire adult life. I use no winter heat energy, just down and sweaters - works for me. (and long johns if needed)

This is a tax on food, illegal in the first place.

In the second place it outlaws paper bags--- yes -- according to Conlin they are not good recycling fodder since the paper comes from trees. Duh?

Vote no - and they will come back with a decent law, maybe.

Erica, you are so lock step to the mainstream. Don't you every pay attention to real greenies, seniors, low income folks, big families, and the voices chanting unfair tax???

Of course you fail to note that garbage can liners are often the grocery bags, hence sales to Hefty will go sky high, no gain, just pain in the ass. AND millions to the general fund a dime at a time off of food purchasing .... the most dire of necessity ... and I think illegal under state law. Remember no tax on food and I think that includes the bag, essential to get to home with the food. Carry milk without the carton, try, the bag is another container just as essential to the food tango we all dance.

Course Tom Carr - dimwit - will not agree. Erica, you and Tom seem mated on this one.

#10

Hardly emotional - just such a tired old saw. And means nothing at all.

So chant on and on and on. Your pleasure in some form it seems. No orderly in sight, just going out for dinner and drinks.....

ECB is a pansy-ass who endorses the use of pansy-ass canvas bags. Pansy-ass ECB uses pansy-ass canvas bags herself without fail, always and everywhere.

I haven't bought a plastic trash can liner in years -- I use Bread bags, plastic shopping bags, waxed paper bags from cereal boxes, or whatever. I guess I'll have to some math to figure out if it will be cheaper to just pay the bag tax or start buying Hefty Sacks...

Wah wah wah. Math is hard and my dog needs to shit in something. People who want to outlaw plastic bags are communist. I'm totally green and manage to use all of my plastic bags 10 times each, so the city council must all be eating shit for lunch and puking bad crack into the mouths of all the pathetic do-gooders like Erica, who is probably a mouth breeder and has never worked a day in her life.

"Mouth breeder," I like it.

Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible!

The perfect oxidant for plastic bags is sunlight. Therefore, do the environment a favor, and please throw the bag in the street and let it blow around alot after your done with it.

--A message from the Ad Council

A friend of mine made this observation and I agree...He said that if the city wants to charge a tax on the bags, than the revenue should go to something related the bags/garbage/etc and not into the general fund. Makes sense to me.

I can't wait to pay the bag tax! Then all the black criminals in Seattle will evolve and start behaving in ways that make them fit to live in a modern civilized society.

And now back to work at The Stranger, which wastes tons and tons of paper each week and refuses to charge a nominal fee to help the environment, as well.

I have been to Germany several times in the past 2 years and let me tell you...they are WAY ahead of us environmentally. Yes, you do pay extra for a bag. No, you do not pay extra for a cart at the airport. Crazy, huh? Bring your own damn bag people! Is it really that much of an inconvenience? Sometimes I am embarassed to be an American. *sigh*

#21 If they charged, who would read it. I do my part. Unless I am sitting somewhere having breakfast, I only read the Stranger online. I do click on the ads when they are interesting so they can get some income.

@23 If The Stranger charged 25 cents a copy the people who always pick up a copy but never open it or waste an entire paper just to get a movie listing they can get elsewhere would think twice.

Obviously ECB doesn't own a grocery store. So it's perfectly fair for her to tell me I can't give my customers, who bought something in my store, that I can't give them a free bag to take it home.

But The Stranger can litter the streets and sidewalks all over the city with as much free paper as it wants to give out.

#19 - duh. good idea -- good thing that is exactly what the money will go for!

The Stranger would survive a law requiring they charge, assuming all their competition had the same requirement. Might even thrive. But it's moot, since nothing of the sort would even begin to have the faintest chance to even be considered compatible with the First Amendment.

I have a question about the bag tax.

If everyone is going to consume the same quantity of plastic buying doggy poop bags and trash can liners, then is the American Chemistry Council throwing away $227,000? Are they fools to spend so much money fighting something that won't reduce plastic consumption?

#18 - thanks - good for chuckles

WAIT - as I remember this is the Mexican Recycle Program for plastic bags? Fucking everywhere.

In India they braid them into rope, take note Erica. Another career in the future??, very Green, but I suspect the pay is shit.

@18

ALSO: some douchey kid can video tape said bag blowing around. circle of life!

I am a bit curious about this whole bag fee. when I go to a mini mart and buy a 40 or something, they ALWAYS put it in a bag, which makes me think there's some weird law about visible alcohol containers whether opened or not. I could give a shit about the bag, I don't need a plastic bag to carry around one bottle, that is asinine. but am I required to? and then must soon have to pay the bag fee if I am not carrying a bag to put it in. what the hell, man?

Really? There aren't any single-issue voters working at the Stranger? Maybe these people's issue isn't your favorite, but I think there are probably some writers here who certainly would vote on a single-issue (when was the last time Dan voted for a non-gay right's candidate or ECB for a anti-choice candidate?). I tend to be one too, but this headline just seems likely hypocritical.

Anyone who believes that all the plastic bags are all being efficiently reused because 'I use shopping bags for garbage/dog doo' etc has got to be a halfwit. The percentage of bags being recycled in such a manner even once is likely to be what 5, at best? The average person gets hundreds if not thousands of these things per year and their harmful effect on the evironment and especially water ways is pretty well documented. Honestly, when such a truly minor inconvenience as carrying a reusable bag gets the whiners whining at such a pitch (in one of the most progressive cities in the country) it is clear we are all doomed.

Give it up, Erica.

You lost in your attempt to force those who earn the least to pay a bag tax - one that would increase the amount of dog poo on our front sidewalk strips.

Want to cut pollution - stop driving. That's half the battle.

Want to piss off people? Impose a bag tax. Instead ... why not just have a REFUNDABLE 5 cent fee - then people have a CHOICE as to whether they want to pay it.

oh, and @21 for the win.

How will the Stranger pay the cap and trade tax on THEIR carbon emissions?

And have you done the math to figure out how many penguins and polar bears you have killed?

I'll give you a hint - it's in the thousands EACH YEAR.

I thought they already implemented the ban on styrofoam containers starting in January?

ALL you people whohave not cred to read the proposed law -- it is poorly written -- it doesn't apply to all retail, just food stores .... what is that all about .... tax on paper bags at grocery stores as well as platic ... what is that all about ... yes, paper bags can re recycled, reused, re pulped to bays, etc. .... will allow the poor and elderly some execption ... what is that about ... stigma is what it is called

the tax is not targeted to any green project ... into the general fund

education is the route for more recycling - - the most recycle gains are in commerical, not residentiial ... what is that about, easier to pound the masses .... let business off the hook

bad law, vote against it

start over city and put this is a large scale plan ... dump the odds and ends piece meal approach

CALLED PLANNING AND POLICY, DEAR COUNCIL MEMBERS

Subject + Verb = Sentence

The tax revenue it would create would just be given to Paul Allen.

Or sent back to us in "Recycling is Important" junk-mail flyers.

Erica, what do we do about this? What can we do as concerned citizens? Help!