After looking at the life cycle of a traditional plastic bag from the grocery store, this news is refreshing. Starting in January, Washington D.C. imposed a 5 cent per bag tax on retailers and restaurants. This is the first tax of its kind, and many people were worried about the increased cost to the consumer and how well this tax would be accepted. Well, it’s stronger than anyone could have imagined. Within the first month of the program, the average monthly number of bags used in D.C. decreased over 80% from 22.5 million bags to just 3 million. That is an incredible change in a single month, and to top it all of, the tax has already generated $150,000 to clean up the Anacostia River.
In a lot of grocery stores around the country, there are incentives for bringing your own bag, often times paying you 5 cents per reusable bag, but that is a lot different than taxing everyone. An incentive is a nice bonus, but not something that will control many peoples actions. A tax, on the other hand, seems makes it seem like you are loosing money and therefore it’s to be avoided. On top of that, I can’t tell you how many times I have been to the grocery store and offered to carry my one or two items home without a bag, only to see the bag boy throw the bag that I had just taken my items out of into the trash. GRR! Just last week, my wife and I were out for dinner and had some leftovers to take home. After our server packed them up we started to leave, and she insisted on sending us with a bag. When we told her that we didn’t want one, she said that should would get in trouble with her manager if she didn’t give us one. That sort of attitude is what can change with a small tax, and I think that D.C. has succeeded with that goal.
My uneducated guess would be that half of the bags that were used in D.C. were not replaced with reusable bags, but just done without. Maybe if retailers see an economic reason to reduce their impact, they will start to ask if people really do have their own bags, or if they want to buy a reusable one instead. Personally, I think that packaging and disposable containers (like Starbucks cups) should be the next, but that may take a little while to implement. So for now, I think that we should all applaud D.C.’s efforts and tell your representative that you support a bag tax in your state too.
More Information on the Bag Tax
-Wikipedia: Reusable Shopping Bags
