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508 Comments
- Sarawanan, on 02/03/2008, -41/+250Plastic bag tax should really be adopted across the world
- inactive, on 02/03/2008, -45/+207Oh snap. Too bad America will never do this. Why not? Because it would be good for the planet.
- dienaked, on 02/03/2008, -13/+115Now go for the bottled water tax too.
- l2OI3, on 02/03/2008, -9/+76In all fairness, most people reuse the bags at home, namely in trashcans.
- protodon, on 02/03/2008, -13/+71Dear America,
Let's do this so I won't feel so gay carrying a canvas bag to the supermarket. Also, I could have Captain Planet on my canvas bag and you know what he'd be saying? He'd be saying "The Power is Yours!" Cause it is!
Thanks
One Self-Proclaimed Planeteer - plat0, on 02/03/2008, -10/+62The only reason Americans won't accept this as a legitimate option is the American obsession with personal choice above all else...including the environment and even economic realities...
- wildchildpub, on 02/03/2008, -3/+37Haven't you heard? The Congress is discussing this very thing. A fifteen cent tax on plastic bags. Whole Foods will be plastic bag free by March or April. They'll still be offering paper, though. We just increase our consumption of trees.
- inactive, on 02/03/2008, -5/+34The only thing that you people should get taxed on, is not knowing how to f*cking recycle.
- TheMachine1, on 02/03/2008, -1/+28Yeah drive your SUV to Walmart and be sure to use a reusable bag.
- swrostmore, on 02/03/2008, -1/+28the welfare supermarket down the street from me has been doing this for years. although they don't call it a tax, they call it "buying a bag for your groceries"
- inactive, on 02/03/2008, -9/+35You know most people recycle those plastic bags by using the as trash bags and to store things like perishables in the fridge. You'd be forcing people to have to buy trash and zip lock bags. Which would be really annoying.
- sjl127, on 02/03/2008, -1/+27If you tax it, you get less of it. If you subsidize it, you get more of it. Therefore, I'm not surprised.
- docbob84, on 02/03/2008, -1/+25The stores train their cashiers to bag things the way they do because the cashiers and the customers are stupid, for the most part. I worked at Walmart as a cashier for a few summers and they honestly had to tell most of the cashiers how to bag, because people would put a carton of eggs in with soda and cans of soup. What bugged me (and I'm sure the store too) even more were the customers who demanded you only use one bag, then were pissed off when they found their merchandise shifted on the ride home and the cans of soup indeed smashed the eggs all over their car seat. So I'm sure the stores' bagging practices are more of a Cover Your Ass move than they just like spending money on those "free" plastic bags.
As far as the cloth bags go, I like that idea to an extent, but if I go to the store and forget my bag I'd rather not have to go home and get one. I also wouldn't be happy having to buy about fifty bags at two bucks a pop, since my family of four can go through two carts of food in our monthly shopping trip. Maybe a "free" bag for a deposit at the store would be in order, so I could bring back the fifty bags the next day, but keeping track of several cloth bags in a house with kids just isn't gonna happen. It would definitely be nice to see the end of all those plastic bags, though. - Toast1185, on 02/03/2008, -3/+24How is he getting dugg up? Ron Paul would hate this plastic bag tax!
- AriaStar, on 02/03/2008, -17/+38How about the store just puts my eggs, loaf of bread, 20oz bottle of soda, candy bar, and magazine, in one bag instead of eggs in one, bread on another, double-bagging it for the soda and candy, and yet another for the magazine? The bagging practices at a lot of stores contribute more than people simply wanting to use bags.
Or how about having a policy where if you return, say, 10 plastic bag, you get a re-usable fabric one for free instead of $2? Even at $2, I rarely see these things for sale.
And stores usually don't like you carrying your bread and eggs without a bag to signal you paid. - wizzpig1337, on 02/03/2008, -6/+27Well you could always speak up for yourself at the checkout? Maybe opening your mouth and asking politely for the check-out person to make for efficient use of bag space? Not really that hard sonny.
- megadan76, on 02/03/2008, -5/+26That is amazing.
We'll probably go that way in a few years; one of our local big chain supermarket locations (right in the middle of the urban, university student part of town) is going plastic bag free in three weeks. The cloth bags are so much easier to carry and they hold a lot more. - evil-doer, on 02/03/2008, -3/+23dont people use these as kitchen garbage bags? if there was no plastic grocery bags coming in to use as garbage bags id just have to BUY MORE plastic bags for garbage bags. theres a ton of them used when i walk my dog too. where are you supposed to put the dog poo?
- Stratochief66, on 02/03/2008, -3/+23Reduce, then reuse, then lastly recycle. Order matters, reusing a cloth bag is better than recycling a ton of plastic ones.
- OisinT, on 02/03/2008, -3/+22nah.. Obama is the flavour of the week
- inactive, on 02/03/2008, -2/+21This will create a huge black market for plastic bags. LEGAIZE IT NOW!
If you outlaw plastic bags than only outlaws will have plastic bags. - cephelo, on 02/03/2008, -1/+18Most grocery store paper bags (including Whole Foods) use near 100% recycled paper. The color and quality of paper sacks is perfect for recycled cardboard and paper products.
- erkokite, on 02/03/2008, -2/+19Nobody is preventing you from using plastic bags. The taxation is making up for the wasteful use of them in the first place.
- IgnatzMouse, on 02/03/2008, -2/+18California has already got that!
- biggredd, on 02/03/2008, -7/+23Where I live they introduced the no smoking law, and at first there was all this push back. Bars and restaurants all claimed they would go out of business. But the law passed, and for about a week it was news, then...nothing. People just changes their habits and moved on. When I look at photos of people smoking in bars, it looks odd to me now. That's just our nature. Same thing would happen if they started to tax plastic bags. IT would be a big fat issue for about a week.
- crazywarthog, on 02/03/2008, -4/+19I would also like to have all the city sewers plugged and force people to compost their own human waste. This will greatly reduce the need for fresh water and save energy too.
- cephelo, on 02/03/2008, -2/+17Completely untrue. I worked in grocery purchasing for a while. Grocery stores alone spend a LOT of money on plastic bags - the cost, storage, and distribution of them. It would take a few weeks to pay itself off as an investment for the average family. Remember that the reusable cloth bags can be used for many purposes -- clothes shopping, groceries, carrying things to/from work... you can also put a lot more in a cloth sack than a flimsy plastic bag.
- bowlich, on 02/03/2008, -1/+16My grocery store effectively does this anyways. If you bring your own bags they knock $0.25 off your purchase. Granted, they don't advertise that this occurs. I bike to the grocery so I always pack my food into a backpack, so the only reason I figured this out was when I noticed that my receipts consistently had "Bags -$0.25" on the bottom.
- hmunkey, on 02/03/2008, -2/+16Trees are renewable and the bags can be put in landfills with no problem.
Oil (used in plastic) is not. - jerbaker, on 02/03/2008, -3/+17Just because someone doesn't use plastic doesn't mean paper is the alternative.
- inhaler, on 02/03/2008, -1/+14I thought business was a risk? You stand to make alot of money if you develop a product that people use, but trends change, and your hip pet rock might not be what's on people's minds anymore.
What I'm trying to say is, the plastic bag industry has had plenty of time to develop alternatives against competitors who produce another product that people would much rather buy (to appease their green guilt). This will undoubtedly hurt the plastics industry in general, but that's part of the risk of entrepreneurship. - Toast1185, on 02/03/2008, -1/+13...as a trash bag, like all of those other plastic trash bags you have in your cans. I use mine to clean out my cat's litter box.
- BlakeEM, on 02/03/2008, -1/+13I use them all the time. Also many times we would bring them back to the store and they have a bin to put them in to recycle them.
- inactive, on 02/03/2008, -1/+13Come one diggers, that's a South Park reference.
- redrob, on 02/03/2008, -3/+14If it wasn't huge, it wouldn't have a significant impact on behaviour
- mightytribble, on 02/03/2008, -3/+13I would suggest that the most reusable thing in the world is 'water'. Or maybe 'air'. Certainly not a processed hydrocarbon product. :)
- krnldmp, on 02/03/2008, -2/+12I already use these re-useable bags. A couple months now.
- amiches, on 02/03/2008, -1/+11Does it really matter? Human beings just aren't naturally altruistic. We need tangible incentives to do the right thing.
- warrenterr, on 02/03/2008, -2/+12supermarkets in san francisco don't use any plastic bags anymore.
- j.carcinogen, on 02/03/2008, -6/+15TY kind loving government, please give us a global carbon tax to save the environment. We can't do it on our own we need Big Brother. Please make sure you educate and vaccinate my children too because I can't.
- MrTulip, on 02/03/2008, -4/+13i agree. same thing as with the lightbulb discussion.
- Chompy, on 02/03/2008, -1/+10Being made out of oil isn't what's bad about plastic bags. Lasting for thousands of years is what's bad about plastic bags.
- robwowjo, on 02/03/2008, -13/+22Yup Ireland did this, good for them. This will probably never happen in the US
Sucks for the Earth eh? - secrity, on 02/03/2008, -3/+12Not entirely, somebody has to make those reusable bags and zip lock bags
- kevcool, on 02/03/2008, -1/+10Being carbon based, my feces is also organic. That's about how relevant your comment is to the topic.
- rezist, on 02/03/2008, -0/+8Those stupid burlap bags allow for the transportation of twice the volume of plastic bags. I'm not sure about weight, but it's safe to say that "burlap" is stronger than plastic grocery bags. Buy cloth bags once, thats it... instead of having tens of thousands of plastic bags go to your landfill over your lifetime. The only way you would need 50 stupid burlap bags is if you usually bring home 100 plastic bags.
- rezist, on 02/03/2008, -4/+12Yeah ***** cloth, I love the plastic bag that has been in the maple tree outside my 6th story window for OVER A YEAR.
- hmunkey, on 02/03/2008, -0/+8I love the list format.
- BryanJK, on 02/03/2008, -0/+8techniqually since *humans* are nature, then everything we do is natural... but in our point of view, thats not organic
- inactive, on 02/03/2008, -3/+11Yeah, i want more mercury released into the environment, it's a good thing!
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