The 20-cent fee on disposable grocery bags has become one of the most contentious issues of this year’s primary election, thanks to a huge assist from the plastics industry, which is spending more than a million dollars to defeat it.
Opponents have pointed out that the fee is largely a symbolic measure—a small step that will do little to solve the problem of global warming. By that standard, we shouldn’t bother banning toxic chemicals from plastics, eliminating Styrofoam, recycling, composting, or any number of "small steps" that, taken together, can add up to big changes.
Plastic bags are an environmental disaster. In the North Pacific Ocean, a pile of litter twice the size of Texas, much of it made up of plastic grocery bags, has caused the aquatic equivalent of a desert, with no fish or other ocean life. It’s the largest landfill in the world, getting larger every day.
So why not just recycle plastic bags—or use paper? To the first point, plastic bag "recycling" is just downcycling, turning the bags into other products that can’t be recycled themselves. To the second, paper bags take more energy than plastic bags to make and transport. And they’re made, obviously, out of paper—a product that’s inherently unsustainable.
Charging a fee for plastic bags gives people an incentive to bring their own. And it works—in Ireland, a 15-cent fee on plastic bags cut their use by more than 90 percent.
Bag fee opponents say that bringing your own bag should be "voluntary." The problem with that argument is that consumers are already free to bring reusable bags to the store any time they like. Few of them do, because people respond to incentives, not gentle encouragement.
Another specious argument made by opponents of the fee is that it disproportionately impacts low-income people, who can’t afford to pay the 20 cents and can’t manage to hang on to reusable bags. The problems with that argument are manifold.
First, the city plans to hand out reusable bags for free, and low-income people can get extras. There are even provisions to exempt poor people from the fee if they leave their bags at home.
Second, the cost of reusable bags is minimal—as low as 70 cents at local drug and grocery stores. And the 20-cent fee itself isn’t a lot of money, even for someone making minimum wage.
Third, there are provisions in the legislation to help food bank and other agencies that rely on donations of plastic bags to distribute food and supplies.
And finally, suggesting that poor people can’t keep up with bags is condescending. They’re poor, not stupid.
But what about low-income clients of food banks? A lot has been made of this (particularly the concern that people will stop donating bags to food banks) but it’s worth noting that virtually every food bank and low-income group in town, including the Downtown Food Bank, the Downtown Emergency Service Center, the Low-Income Housing Institute, and Jewish Family Service, support the fee.
But shouldn’t the city just ban plastic bags altogether? That’s not a bad idea, except: a) The plastic industry would produce just as much of an uproar over such a proposal as they are over the bag fee (as they have in cities across the nation, including Monterey, CA, Oakland, Philadelphia, PA, and Arlington, VA. And b) paper bags aren’t any better, from an environmental standpoint, than plastic.
Ultimately, placing a fee on disposable bags imposes a cost on a good consumers have come to regard, falsely, as free. Grocery stores don’t give you those bags out of gratitude—they build them into the cost of groceries, so that you pay a little more than you would have for the privilege of taking your groceries home in "free" bags. By giving consumers the option of paying for bags or bringing their own, the fee externalizes a cost that was invisible and gives consumers a financial incentive to do the right thing for the environment.
While we’re disappointed that the legislation exempts big-box stores like Target and Costco, we’re hopeful that the success of the program will lead the council to include them as well.
PubliCola picks a "yes" vote on Referendum No. 1.
Full Disclosure: PubliCola gave a free ad to the pro-bag fee campaign on our site.
