Plastic bag ban isn't enough -- pay up
No City of Portland program is complete without nickel-and-diming the citizenry into oblivion. And so it's about to go with the ban on grocery store plastic bags. The visionaries behind this move have just discovered that if you ban plastic bags, people use more brown paper bags. A lot more. And so now they'll make the grocery stores charge a nickel for a paper bag.
Most places we shop give a nickel credit if you bring your own bag, and so this shouldn't be any skin off our nose. But we wouldn't be surprised if the nickels all wound up at City Hall to be handed over to Mark Edlen.
Of course, the hype never stops:
On the environmental side, however, Gilliam says there's no doubt the bag ban has cut down on litter. According to his data, 8.5 million fewer plastic bags per month have come from Portland's large grocery stores. In six months, that's meant a reduction of about 52 million bags that are not getting stuck in recycling facilities' equipment or becoming litter on streets, or in waterways or parks.
Come on -- 52 million fewer bags either in recycling bins or on the ground as litter? Somebody's "green" nose is growing.
| Posted at 8:44 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (7)
Most stores in Europe charge for bags - it's definately not a Portland thing. And you've always been paying for the bags, anyway. But 52M bags does sound like BS.
Posted by dg | June 29, 2012 10:05 AM
Has anyone else noticed that Freddie's no longer carries paper grocery sacks with handles? Not a big deal if you're tossing your groceries into a car and driving home, but a little more inconvenient if you must walk 12 blocks home with your groceries, as I do. I'm sure someone is saving money.
Incidentally, gotta love the ad (below) for the plastic bag superstore ;-)
Posted by NW Portlander | June 29, 2012 10:22 AM
"In six months, that's meant a reduction of about 52 million bags that are not getting stuck in recycling facilities' equipment or becoming litter on streets, or in waterways or parks."
But that isn't the reason they banned the bags - litter yes, but to save the city infrastructure and mechanical systems, but no those would have been a good reasons to ban the bags. Unfortunately the City Council only tells us plastic bags are bad for the environment - which is dumb - maybe its because they have such a low opinion of the residents that they need to speak to the lowest common denomination - themselves.
Posted by Mark | June 29, 2012 10:27 AM
Another lip service Sammyboy rant; likely another lengthy orchestrated production in council chambers with a bias hand picked invited panel or two or three combined with condoned divisive flamboyant demonstrations: and where the general public has what can be said in three minutes can better be said in only one (Sammyboy needs to take his own advice). Then comes the charge of pimping the public again for another nickel, dime or hundreds of dollars for what has now become the almost weekly tax, fee or mandated cost increase from this socialist dictator sham of a mayor and his social engineering agenda.
Posted by TR | June 29, 2012 10:57 AM
Portland government has so completely crapped on my faith in it that I can't believe this isn't just one more scheme to keep those URA dollars flowing in.
I wouldn't be surprised if next they want a cover charge just to be here, though of course they'll call it something else.
Posted by Mr. Grumpy | June 29, 2012 11:40 AM
The $.05 is a payoff to the grocers for not opposing the bag ban or as in Corvallis's case, actively support such a ban. What business association wouldn't like to pass on their costs as a mandatory fee and make sure competitors are saddled with it without being labeled collusion. I wouldn't be surprised if stores stop offering a bag credit too.
How about a $10 parking fee to reduce car trips to the store?
Posted by Andrew | June 29, 2012 5:08 PM
"How about a $10 parking fee to reduce car trips to the store?"
Don't give the socialists any new ideas. They might implement them into their social engineering agenda.
Metro’s hand picked, litmus tested Transportation Policy Alternatives Committee is already considering adding a tax or fee assessed on the owners of every commercial parking space in the tri-county area; but they still refuse to add a tax or fee to the slacker bicyclists that like the occupiers, want everybody else to pay for their lifestyle including bike lanes and bike infrastructure such as adding bike iexclusive space on bridges and the self-styled Blumenauerized bikeway streets. And then too, that same social engineering agenda keeps pumping subsidies into an unsustainable TriMet which just keeps expanding and expanding just like blowing air into a balloon.
Posted by TR | June 30, 2012 2:53 PM