Photo by m hoek.

UPDATE (2:30 p.m.): The AP has expanded on their original wire dispatch, including some more detail on the number of bags used in D.C. last year. Jessica Gresko reports that the city used approximately 55 million bags in 2010, which is still an incredible decrease from the 270 million bags a year Washington shoppers were using before the tax’s introduction.

The Associated Press provides this update on the District’s bag tax — in 2010, shoppers in Washington spent approximately $2 million, in nickel increments, on paper and plastic bags.

The most striking takeaway from this update? Based on the $2 million take, people in the city used about 40 55 (see our update above) million paper and plastic bags in 2010. (Of course, that figure doesn’t include plastic bags which somehow skirted the tax, but still.) Prior to the bag tax’s implementation, the city was ripping through an estimated 22.5 million bags per month. That’s one massive reduction in plastic bag use.

In addition, these numbers reflect revenues which are slightly closer to estimates than ones released in September. The AP’s report claims that the bag tax has brought in 57 54 percent of its revenue goal. (Figures released last fall showed that the tax was pulling in 38 percent of its revenue estimate.) Of course, the whole point of the tax was to reduce the tax base, so whether the tax met its revenue goals or not isn’t exactly the right way to go about analyzing it’s effectiveness as a policy.