Yay- something local and fitting.The NY times isn't my assigned newspaper, but I was looking through and found a pretty useful unsigned editorial that speaks to the concerns about tree hugging. In summary, it commends the Town of Westport, Conn. for their ban on plastic bags, ex. the ones used around grocery, retail convenience stores. It's really an effort to keep things out of precious landfill space.
The problem is that this only really concerns a few people here and there who actually care about the environment. I do like that he agrees with Europe, specifically Ireland - they have been carting around their groceries efficiently, like, forever - and offers a state-wide tax instead of small town-by-town bans on these things. Self-awareness of the environmental impact of our daily routines is great, but it sometimes doesn't reach that far. Money, however, does.
2 comments:
Stop and shop sells those reusable bags for a $1.00 each, and you get 5 cents off every purchase per reusable bag. I usually use three or four bags for about $100 worth of groceries, and the bags pay for themselves after 20 trips.
I think it needs to be up to the individual business to implement these measures however. While reusable bags certainly pay for themselves, it costs the businesses a lot more money since plastic bags are cheap and easy to ship. Banning plastic bags would put a lot of smaller stores which couldn't afford the switch out of business if a ban went into effect.
These trends will catch on, its only a matter of time. Westport is a ridiculously rich town so I don't doubt that many of the people and businesses there can afford the switch, but I do like the idea of taxing consumers on plastic bags. If you're paying an extra 5 or 10 cents per plastic bag every time you go shopping, those $1.00 reusable bags are going to start looking like a bargain.
So what I'm saying basically is don't ban plastic bags, just tax the hell outta em.
Bottom-line: banning plastic bags is against our Amendment rights. Furthermore, I hope that someone takes this to a higher court.
Also, plastic bags are already taxed when the customer purchases them; therefore, further taxation would be unwarranted.
In addition, plastic bags have, in most cases, been considered an amenity, just as plastic silverware, napkins, ketchup packets, and other things of that sort. If we are going to tax plastic bags, why not tax extra for ketchup packets? They are plastic too and customers can easily pump ketchup into those paper cups, right? O wait; this would present a problem for take-out orders, posing a messy situation.
I agree that something must be done about plastic bags, but I do not think that banning them or increasing taxing is an answer to this suffocating problem.
Post a Comment