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The United Nations must be a fan of the D.C. Council's intention to impose a 5 cent fee on consumers for every disposable bag -- the international body's environmental chief this week called for a worldwide ban on single-use plastic bags. Via McClatchy:
"Single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme. His office advises U.N. member states on environmental policies.D.C.'s 5 cent fee still has to be voted on a second time by the D.C. Council and signed by the mayor, but the legislation is expected to pass easily. District CFO Nat Gandhi has already estimated that the fee would lower plastic bag use by 90 percent in the city, much like Ireland's experience, thus helping to clean up the polluted Anacostia River. San Francisco is only U.S. city to have completely banned single-use plastic bags.Steiner's declaration accompanied a UNEP report that identifies plastic as the most pervasive form of ocean litter. According to the report, "Plastic, the most prevalent component of marine debris, poses hazards because it persists so long in the ocean, degrading into tinier and tinier bits that can be consumed by the smallest marine life at the base of the food web."
The ban is already being tested in China, where retailers giving out thin bags can be fined up to $1,464. According to one nationwide survey, 40 billion fewer plastic bags were given out in grocery stores after the law's enactment. In addition, Ireland managed to cut single-use plastic bag consumption 90 percent by levying a fee on each bag that consumers use.
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Of course, banning plastic bottles would do even MORE to help clean up the Anacostia! There are more plastic water and soda bottles loose in the river than anything else. Why can't we have deposits on plastic bottles like we used to have on glass bottles??
Why not ban plastic garbage bags used in the home? We can all live in filth! How about platic wrap? Surely this is as bad, if not worse, then plastic bags? Who cares about food safety and storage, the fish in the Anacostia River are more important than us mere humans!
I can't wait for 20 years from now when we have a sparkling clean Anacostia river surrounded on all sides by neighborhoods that resemble sess pools.
You want to clean up the Anacostia and its neighborhoods? Take the money from the bag tax and use it to pay the residents to move to Southern Maryland.
I hardly think the UN's potential ban was a result of DC's fee proposal. Charging for bags has been commonplace in Europe for years.
it's called a joke.
I think you're missing the point, hillvada. This is causing GLOBAL problems, not just limited to the Anacostia. and if DC implemented a composting program like the one San Fran has, we probably coulc use a lot less garbage bags too.
and ishmael, it would be great if we could get plastic bottles banned too - or have a deposit levied on them. I'd vote for it.
Whatever, DC will pass this, but I guarantee you that nobody is actually going to start charging customers. How is this supposed to be enforced? You think the police are up to the task? Check out the cops at the north end of 395 during rush hour. Watch them pull over all those people that use RFK road to sneak onto Penn Ave. Watch them watch people run red lights and drink in public. Worthless.
Also, my office just started offering plastic bags at the cafeteria. Pretty funny; I bet they have like twelve boxes of them sitting somewhere.
Yeah, right, like the UN will ever actually do anything. I won't hold my breath.
Plastics aren't just a problem here in the States. Take a look at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/. Because of the currents in the Pacific, lots of trash, primarily plastics, collect in the gyre. The problem with plastics is they do not go away for hundreds of years, but get smaller and smaller so you end up with a soup of plastics.
The people doing recovery work for the Air France crash have had their own dealings with trash in the Atlantic. The originally thought it was wreckage, but ended up being just plain trash (http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/06/05/marine.debris.crash/index.html).
So they ban plastic bags - what are people supposed to use to clean up after their dogs/pets? Which is more harmful to the environment: plastic bags or dog poo washing down the drain?
as has been said numerous times, they aren't banning plastic bags that you use to put your veggies in in the produce section. or are those not good enough to hold doggie poo?
Why don't we just all stop using plastic bags and bottles?
I'm infuriated at the 5 cent grocery bag tax. I already pay 8.5% of my income to DC, not to mention 10% of restaurant costs and 5.5% of all non-grocery sales items - now they want taxes for grocery bags too? I grant them that I could easily bring my own bags if I have a car. But I don't. I go to the grocery store after work. They expect me to carry around a grocery bag all day anytime I might want to go to the store? So basically, because I am poor and wish to help the environment, I do not have a car. Because of this, the DC Counsel wants to penalize me for being environmentally wasteful. What a joke.
How poor can you be if you're paying 8.5% DC income tax?
I have a nifty micro sized nylon bag that folds up to half the size of a dollar bill, that I keep in my bag in case I need to carry something home during the day.
But occasionally I forgo my reusable bag for the plastic ones so that I have something to clean out the cat's litterbox with, and to line the bathroom wastebasket.
If I can't get something this size in the store, I'll have to buy them. It will suck to have to pay for them. but more importantly, it won't do anything about the world's waterways.
Like it or not, these bags do have their uses.
Bags vs. bottles
Plastic bottles are a problem. The difference is that bags create entirely different problems. Bottles do not get caught in trees, air intakes, or the insides of wild animals. Bottles are much easier to recycle and they are easier to collect when they get somewhere they aren't supposed to be. (And if you don't think a bag in a tree is a problem, you've never had one outside your bedroom window.)
Taxes/Fees
The goal is to reduce use of disposable plastic bags. Additional revenue is a side effect; a fee is better then an outright ban. Ideally, there would be no revenue because nobody would use them. Collecting the revenue is easy. Retailers track how many they buy and pay the tax on them, just like they do any other excise tax item (e.g., cigarettes, alcohol). And if you don't like it, carry a bag with you or do your shopping in Virginia (which taxes groceries) or Maryland (which is considering a similar bag tax).
Quit Your Whining
We all have a legitimate interest in discouraging behavior that is detrimental to us as a community, whether it be homicide, double parking, or using plastic bags. It is possible that the bag fee will be a disaster. Fortunately, we have a mechanism for fixing that: the political process. It the bag tax is the end of the world, as its opponents suggest, we can simply repeal it. If if just means a few malcontents move to Montana, then we're all better off in more ways than one.
All the bottles, plastic bags, and other trash in the Anacostia River didn't get there by itself. Littering and a lack of pride in one's neighborhood put it there.
Plastic bags don't litter; people litter.