Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Progress Report on the DC Bag Tax

In City Renewed, one of the District's green blogs, I read that the DC City Council's second vote on the Anacostia Watershed Protection and Cleanup Act succeeded. Now, the bill just has to go to the mayor's desk before being implemented. (It would be effective 1/2010).

I have been having difficulty finding out more details on this, but I think it is a good to keep an eye on. Keep your fingers crossed!

3 comments:

  1. don't know if you follow nyc politics or not... but bloomberg considered implementing a similar tax- 5cents per bag. he ultimately decided against it because it would "unfairly burden the poor"

    so many things wrong with this argument. first, the tax probably isn't high enough to deter most people from just paying for the bags (see: ireland's first plastic bag tax). second, the tax wouldn't go into effect for a while, giving people plenty of time to stock up (see: my grandmother, who hoards plastic bags like it's her job). third, i think most people can afford 5 cents... even if they are poor- and then they'll save them, instead of throwing them away.

    hope that dc doesn't follow in nyc's footsteps

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  2. I do not understand that argument at all. If you shop once, you can reuse the bag. Everyone has shopped in the past, and thus they can all have bags. You also have the ability to use a schoolbag or make your own bag out of old clothes.

    The DC bill has built into it a provision to help low-income families.

    You could also try to harness the market to provide bags for the poor. In other words, turn reusable bags into marketing/advertising platforms, sell ad space on the bags, and give them out for free with all costs defrayed. (There are a lot of problems in this idea, but I thought it was an interesting idea to ponder.)

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  3. Philly falls the way of NYC: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/heardinthehall/Plastic_bag_ban_passes.html

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