Now they want to tax...Grocery bags?

Fron USA Today Newspaper Tuesday 11/23/04 page 3A.

San Fransico city officials are considering a fee of 17 cents a bag to help defray the estimated $8.5 million spent on garbage clean up every year. They say it effort to clean up the enviroment, but I would love to know how much of it would end up in the pockets of city officials!

What next? A toilet paper or kleenex tax?

Well, that sure would encourage people to start using their canvas bags instead...

I know my family has used their own bags for groceries for years now...In many stores, you can recieve a .05 per bag REFUND when you use them, so You'd be saving almost .25 per bag of groceries with this.

I'd be all for it. It would promote more responsibility, to be sure.

It's nothing new. The brits have been debating it for a while it appears.
And BTW they are talking about plastic bags


PLASTIC BAG TAX
Interest in a potential tax on plastic carrier bags has been aroused in the UK following the implementation of such a tax in the Republic of Ireland in 2002.


www.bpf.co.uk...

You already pay taxes on toilet paper and kleenex....when you buy them.

Arkansas tried that when Clinton was Gov. It did work very well and he got defeated in the next election.

I agree with the tax. Plastic bags are wasteful and people who use them a lot should cover the cost of production and disposal. It's only fair.

I was in a store in Munich and there weren't bags offered at all. This was at first inconvenient, but makes a lot of environmental sense.

Use canvas bags. It's that simple.

I am all for any kind of enviromental reform, but 17 cents seems too extreme, and by calling it a tax guess who's pocket it goes into. If each grocery store charged say 5 cents a bag, that would be resonable, and make good sense! But when it comes under political control you know the money will never get to it's intended purpose, and they would keep trying to raise the fee!

An excellent idea. This will hopefully encourage peolpe to re-use old plastic bags, I too hope strongly that the money from this tax ends up in the right hands however.

Very simple the next time you go to the grocery store bring your own bags with you and make them used them.

We have it here in Oz, nobodys complaining! Since we all (almost) live coastal, countless millions of plastic bags end up in the ocean, killing sea turtles and other marine life, also thousands of tonns a year end up in landfill. Major recycling and enviromental awareness is growing and thats a good thing! Folk dont give a damn unless you hit em where it hurts, In the pocket!

P.s. many stores are now offering cardbourd boxes for customer use aswell, these are boxes their products come in, recycling at its best!

[edit on 23-11-2004 by instar]