Grocery Bag Taxes and Bans - An Effective Means To Reduce Waste

[giant shrimp]

a filthy watershed in a crappy part of town that is generally avoided by anyone with good enough sense and income to enjoy wine.

actually, this is an interesting part of town. start with kenilworth gardens (a short walk from the metro), where you can drink wine, discretely. i have seen evidence that you can do even more. take the trail down to the river, where they are paddling in it. i know how to get to a nice cemetery on the other side, but i wouldn't swim across the river. it's rather scenic, but you don't want to get any of it in your mouth.

[DameEdna]

Visitors from out-of-town have questions, and you need answers:

(one good question lost)

Q: The cab fare is five dollars less if you cross the street?

A: Yes, it's the zone system

(good questions)

Q: Why do I have to pay five cents for a plastic bag at Filene's Basement?

A: Because they sell chocolate bars (Thank You, DR member, for this explanation)

Q: Does the Library of Congress have it's own police force?

A: Yes, to track down patrons with overdue books

Q: The National Mall has no stores?

A; Correct

Q: The Executive Mansion, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., not really on Pennsylvania Ave.?

A: More like G Street, maybe.

Q: Why can bars be open one hour later tonight?

A: Because tomorrow is a Federal holiday.

Q: If I go to a restaurant, can I take home a partial bottle of wine?

A: Yes, but you will need a tamper-proof container and a dated receipt attached.

Q: Marion Barry is a council member? Wasn't he the Mayor who went to jail?

A: Exactly.

Q: If I buy a bottle of wine, and the store puts it in a box , do I have to pay the 5 cent bag fee?

[Anna Blume]

According to Kojo show I just heard, supermarkets are reporting around a 50% drop in the number of plastic bags they are handing out.

[Pat]

According to Kojo show I just heard, supermarkets are reporting around a 50% drop in the number of plastic bags they are handing out.

They may be having a decline, but what about the other stores where patrons are unknowingly being charged?

[Poivrot Farci]

Q: If I buy a bottle of wine, and the store puts it in a box , do I have to pay the 5 cent bag fee?

A: If a nickel is the breaking point of not buying wine, switch to less expensive beer or ask the person behind you in line for a nickel, politely. They probably wouldn’t give it a second thought, even if you fit the vagrant profile. Calculate the exact tip on tax in the aforementioned restaurant so that another nickel isn’t lost.

My daughter's crew team practices on the Anacostia, it would be nice to have it cleaned up.

I still hate the stupid tax because in the summertime I generally don't have any place to put the bags when I go shopping, they are uncomfortable to carry.

An initiative for clean water is worthwhile. A bag tax that decreases as a percentage of what it costs to fill that bag, while forcing consumers to make a conscious albeit petty decision, is smart. Protesting a tax that can be covered by the second smallest denomination found in most couches or car consoles is neither.

Consider a cloth bag one inside another and holding it from the cloth handles or pay the tax as the law is not likely to change based on a resident’s seasonal terms or boat rowing needs. Bags aren’t going to be any more comfortable to carry when they are full of groceries, unless the discomfort of carrying an empty bag is emotional shame from the taunts of passersby. The only thing more soul crushing (and chafing) than not having someone acknowledge a greeting (empty hello) is holding an empty bag that makes funny rustling noises.

For those whose survival is threatened by the tax, I will be offering nickels in lieu of expensive Halloween candy again this year, perhaps with more success. Have to dress up and say the magic words like all the other kids though. 1st convincing Mr. Burns costume gets a dime.

[leleboo]

1st convincing Mr. Burns costume gets a dime.

"Ooh don't poo-poo a nickel, Lisa. A nickel will buy you a steak and kidney pie, a cup of coffee, a slice of cheesecake and a newsreel. With enough change left over to ride the trolley from Battery Park to the Polo Grounds."

Thinking about it, I have to say ... I don't mind having to shell out a nickel when I really need the bag, just as I like getting the credit when I bring my own (90% of the time if not more). I guess I wish there were some way to be sure my thrown out bags weren't ending up in the river (we use them as trash bags, so maybe that helps ... or maybe it's worse).

[Mrs. B]

Consider a cloth bag one inside another and holding it from the cloth handles or pay the tax as the law is not likely to change based on a residents seasonal terms or boat rowing needs. Bags arent going to be any more comfortable to carry when they are full of groceries, unless the discomfort of carrying an empty bag is emotional shame from the taunts of passersby.

PF I have the utmost respect for you in many ways (not the least of which is your considerable talent in the kitchen) but I don't think you get where I'm coming from.

1. I don't drive (well at least almost never, it's been 3 months I think)

2. I walk almost every where (not bus, not subway, not bike)

3. I don't carry a back pack or a purse

4. I don't always have pockets - because I'm a women and idiot designers don't always put them in my clothing

5. My hands sweat when they carry things

6. I often walk 30-40 minutes before I am even ready to buy my groceries. And I enjoy walking, alot, with my hands free (and thus not sweaty)

7. I don't mind carrying full grocery bags home in the least, I actually relish the workout

8. I don't mind paying the 5 cents for the bags - fine for/by me (I only brought the season up in my post because in the winter I might have pockets into which I might stuff a bag or two)not so fine for those less fortunate than I (and this is really what hacks me off but I'm going to continue with the rant)

9. I do very much feel like a "bad citizen" for not having resuable bags when I check out even though we reuse evil plastic checkout bags in our house all the time. That's the "emotional shame" I have to deal with. - dude if I cared about the taunts of passerbys would I walk out of the house in Tevas with socks?

10. Perhaps somebody should come up with bags that fit inside a locally produced non-bleached organic hemp cloth wonderbra (with wallet option for those accoustomed to living without a purse)? That I might consider. Or else on the outside of a sun bonnet (Hey I seriously have that trademarked!) Oh wait, I could make a necklace or bandolier out of my public radio reusable Chico Bags (Tm that one too I already have the patent) unfortunately I think those ideas won't work with the gazzilion Harris Teeter, Whole Foods and Giant bags I amassed in the lead-up to the bag ban which honestly are only useful if you have them stashed in a car. And if I stashed them in the car I'd use them even less. See item #1.

Thanks for letting me rant. Basically I just don't want to feel bad for not always toting around a tote. Yes it is all about me.

And send please notify all designers to put pockets in everything. It could save the Anacostia - which is actually nicer than you'd think.

[giant shrimp]

Q: If I buy a bottle of wine, and the store puts it in a box , do I have to pay the 5 cent bag fee?

cork dispenses a cardboard carton (like a beer carton) holding four bottles of wine. they are shockingly exposed, you can see it's wine. i have even had people on the street ask me if it was wine. the bottles can clink. i don't believe i have been charged the 5 cent bag tax for this, although i have never looked. if you have a carton, chances are you are easily carrying $60 worth of wine.

[Anna Blume]

Romuald Hazoumé creates masks from the plastic canisters that Africans perilously strap to their backs or balance on bicycle handles while transporting gas down long, bumpy roads.

Whether or not they fold into compact, nylon pouches, reusable shopping bags are not nearly as bulky; filled with groceries, they usually are not prone to explosion.

During the Rockwellian Summer Challenge, I pledged to walk everywhere I bought my groceries and lost nearly 20 pounds doing so; I just planned trips and brought along a folding shopping cart when necessary. Nowadays, I walk or take the bus and just don't feel all that put-upon when it comes to carrying a couple of bags, especially since I can't stand being without something to read.

I admire any woman who has freed herself from (mostly) gender-specific accoutrements, purses especially. As someone with virtually non-existent shoulders, I empathize w anyone who finds straps annoying. Contrarian rebels are close to my heart, too.

Nonetheless, I still don't get it. Surely anyone who has learned to accept the hassle of separating recyclables from trash, brushing teeth morning and night, and all the other trifling, cultural rites we incorporate into our daily lives, can bear the fardel that is a reusable shopping bag.

P.S. Someone needs to come up with ties that transform into shopping bags after work along with hair accessories and scarves for women. Meanwhile, neck straps for keys and photo ID's come in handy. Belt loops.

[Barbara]

Actually, Mrs. B and I are in the same boat. Except that I always wear jeans and keep my cards in a man's wallet in one front pocket and my keys in the other. The difference is that I have been carrying my own canvas bags for years to the farmers' markets and started carrying them to the grocery stores when we just became overwhelmed with plastic bags at home. I bought something similar to the Chico bags for Dame Edna to carry around, but he often forgot--until he started having to pay a nickel. Harris Teeter started handing out their reusable bags when you spent $20 and I always just grab one of those when I leave the house, since I'm bound to buy something. Those bags are guaranteed; so if one breaks or wears out, HT will replace it. I guess I just don't mind carrying one. And, I've been paying attention to see how many of those plastic bags wind up in trees, now that they are worth something.

[legant]

What about rewarding good behavior? What happened to paying $0.05 for every returned bottle or can? Some states still do it. It seems that would be quite an active (vs. passive) incentive to get citizens to contribute to river clean up.

[dcs]

What about rewarding good behavior? What happened to paying $0.05 for every returned bottle or can? Some states still do it. It seems that would be quite an active (vs. passive) incentive to get citizens to contribute to river clean up.

I am sorry but most governments only remember how to take your money.

Seriously, recycling is getting so easy I continue to be astonished that some people just will not separate their trash. In Arlington you get a big blue bin for single stream recycling and a black bin for refuse. I know some people who toss the recyclables into the black bin but I am unable to fathom why when it takes no more effort to throw them in the blue bin. Is it possible to be ideologically opposed to recycling?

[sheldman]

The only problem with the bag tax is that when I bring my own bags along, it totally throws off the practiced routine of so many baggers who grew up in the era of uniform brown paper bags, and leads them to fill one canvas bag with every heavy thing, and another empty but for a single carrot. Not quite sure why this is, but it is. Not that I'm obsessive-compulsive about balancing my bags in proper bagging technique or anything ....

[Barbara]

The only problem with the bag tax is that when I bring my own bags along, it totally throws off the practiced routine of so many baggers who grew up in the era of uniform brown paper bags, and leads them to fill one canvas bag with every heavy thing, and another empty but for a single carrot. Not quite sure why this is, but it is. Not that I'm obsessive-compulsive about balancing my bags in proper bagging technique or anything ....

This reminds me of when I would very deliberately put the heavy things first on the counter, so as to help the checker. Feh. Since I shop often for food, I now can say "I'll do the the bagging." This is particularly useful with those "mini" shopping carts (Dear God, why weren't these in existence always??) This removes the step where I have to take everything out and rearrange it, so as to even out the weight of the bags that I have to carry home. Obviously, I'm not someone who shops for a family every couple of weeks--and has a car. Still, for urbanites like me,I think those HT bags are the best things EVER.

[Anna Blume]

An average guy makes a resolution to stop using plastic bags at the grocery store. Little does he know that this simple decision will change his life completely. He comes to the conclusion that our consumptive use of plastic has finally caught up with us, and looks at what we can do about it today. This film chronicles the global production, use and disposal of plastic bags and other plastics, documenting the environmental consequences of these products, including the effects of plastics on a wide range of species, lands, waterways and oceans. The film also identifies smart alternatives and solutions. Directed by Suzan Beraza. Produced by Michelle Hill, REEL Thing Productions.

The synopsis describes "Bag It", one of the documentaries in the ongoing Environmental Film Festival, shown on Sunday, March 28 at 2:45 PM at the Carnegie Institution.

Admission is free except for Waitman who has to fork over a nickel.

[leleboo]

According to today's Washington Post, the tax is raising less money than hoped for, but monthly bag usage went from 22.5 million to 3.3 million in a single month. (From an environmental perspective, that seems to be a pretty good start.)

[Pat]

According to today's Washington Post, the tax is raising less money than hoped for, but monthly bag usage went from 22.5 million to 3.3 million in a single month. (From an environmental perspective, that seems to be a pretty good start.)

If they're trying to reduce bag usage, they should expect that the tax won't raise much money. Um, right?

[leleboo]

If they're trying to reduce bag usage, they should expect that the tax won't raise much money. Um, right?

Right; that's a perfect point. What I got from the piece is that it actually reduced bag use more -- and faster -- than anticipated.

Then again, I might have read too much into that.

Still: there's money to clean up the Anacostia that wasn't there before, and there are fewer bags to mess it up than there were before. I fail to see how this isn't a win-win environmentally (I'm intentionally, for the moment, leaving out the argument about people for whom a five-cent-per-bag tax is actually demonstrably problematic).

[zoramargolis]

(I'm intentionally, for the moment, leaving out the argument about people for whom a five-cent-per-bag tax is actually demonstrably problematic).

What if the 5 cent fee resulted in the people for whom the fee is problematic changing their behavor and keeping and re-using the bags, so that they didn't have to pay the fee and their bags wouldn't be discarded and end up in the river either? Then it would be win-win-win...

[leleboo]

What if the 5 cent fee resulted in the people for whom the fee is problematic changing their behavor and keeping and re-using the bags, so that they didn't have to pay the fee and their bags wouldn't be discarded and end up in the river either? Then it would be win-win-win...

I have no problem with a win-win-win scenario.

(This isn't the Kobayashi Maru, right?)

[DarthJim]

What I got from the piece is that it actually reduced bag use more -- and faster -- than anticipated.

Then again, I might have read too much into that.

You're exactly right. In economic terms, it means that the demand for plastic bags turned out to be much more elastic than they expected.

If you want I could make a graph. I make a lot of graphs.

[DonRocks]

You're exactly right. In economic terms, it means that the demand for plastic bags turned out to be much more elastic than they expected.

All together now!

1 ... 2 ... 3 ...

(And please, no more jokes about supple-ply sci-deck gnomics!)

Cheers,

Polly Ethyl Leen

aka Mack Rowe

[Pool Boy]

I think it is amazing that plastic bag usage dropped 90+% in just the first month. That is astounding. $150k/month = $1.8M/year=7.2M over four years, about $2.8M below expectations.

[wmsayce]

I mean, the problem is that paper or reusable bags aren't any better for the environment than the plastic bags.

Whether or not your reusable bag is better depends upon the material the recycled bag is made from. The amount of energy consumed during bags' life cycles vary hugely depending on what exactly the bag is made from. So, unless every single person starts using organic cotton reusable bags instead of the plastic bags from the grocery store, we're accomplishing nothing except making it incredibly inconvenient for DC residents to grocery shop.

The difference in the bags is almost entirely in how we perceive them. Now, reusable bags are more like a fashion statement instead of actually doing any better for the environment. Besides, there were plenty of people like me who took plastic bags and then reused them until they fell apart (I still do with the ones I have left)

And if we're after cleaning up the river, charging $0.05 per bag seems like the worst way to accomplish that ever. Maybe we should focus on littering or, I don't know, people who dump waste into the water?

[porcupine]

we're accomplishing nothing except making it incredibly inconvenient for DC residents to grocery shop.

Except for the part where fewer grocery bags in use means fewer grocery bags in the river or stuck in trees or whatever.

[Pat]

According to the Post, Fenty plans to use money from the bag tax for street sweeping.

[Waitman]

According to the Post, Fenty plans to use money from the bag tax for street sweeping.

There we go. An annoying inconvenience sold to us with a lie.

[DonRocks]

If they're trying to reduce bag usage, they should expect that the tax won't raise much money. Um, right?

Um ...

But!

"Perhaps the more significant result of the measure is that plastic bag use decreased sevenfold in the city after its implementation. Only 3 million bags were distributed in January (the first month of the tax) compared with 22.5 million per month in 2009."

If this is correct, imagine 250 million plastic bags eliminated per year within the city limits.

(This could put www.dcsocialite.com out of business.)

[Pat]

I've given up trying to keep track of bags when I go to the outside vendors at Eastern Market. I usually arrive with a backpack, one large plastic bag and a couple of small plastic bags. It's just too hard to coordinate with the crowds and types of food. People are right there wanting to be waited on next, and it backs everything up to get fussy about a bag. For a while, I was trying to dump everything into one large bag, but that doesn't work well when you have berries or things like that. I'm just paying for bags now for some stuff, though I don't think everyone charges.

[goodeats]

My most recent irkiness/frustration factor: ordering for carryout, picking it up and then looking at the bill after you get home to find out that 1. the $0.05 was charged to you and 2. the food and beverage tax charged includes the bag tax, making it a double tax in my book.

So far, I have noticed this at Sichuan Pavilion and Nooshi, both near Farragut. Have people encountered this and do you now just automatically preempt them at the end of conversation by saying "no bag, please" or "I will bring my own bag?"

I feel a bit at a loss because in the end, it's asking for a 5-7cent refund, which seems weak to ask back and it's not like I don't have a bag with me. I just dislike being caught off guard in a way.

[Waitman]

My most recent irkiness/frustration factor: ordering for carryout, picking it up and then looking at the bill after you get home to find out that 1. the $0.05 was charged to you and 2. the food and beverage tax charged includes the bag tax, making it a double tax in my book.

So far, I have noticed this at Sichuan Pavilion and Nooshi, both near Farragut. Have people encountered this and do you now just automatically preempt them at the end of conversation by saying "no bag, please" or "I will bring my own bag?"

I feel a bit at a loss because in the end, it's asking for a 5-7cent refund, which seems weak to ask back and it's not like I don't have a bag with me. I just dislike being caught off guard in a way.

10% tax on 5 cents is 1/2 cent. Knock yourself out.

I just want to point out that as a protest against the bag tax, I just lie in the self check out line and tell Harris Teeter I brought two of my own, earning a 10 cent discount. Take that, envirofacists!

[leleboo]

I just want to point out that as a protest against the bag tax, I just lie in the self check out line and tell Harris Teeter I brought two of my own, earning a 10 cent discount. Take that, envirofacists!

I don't quite do that, but I do input I've got my own bag when I'm carrying my items out in my own hands (no bag of any kind.) Same diff, right? (Heh.)

[Barbara]

I just want to point out that as a protest against the bag tax, I just lie in the self check out line and tell Harris Teeter I brought two of my own, earning a 10 cent discount. Take that, envirofacists!

Oh, you are a bad, bad man. I wondered how you would figure out how to avoid spending that nickel! Genius! Now, can we mention Hitler or the Mafia?

[porcupine]

Now, can we mention Hitler or the Mafia?

You can, but Don will delete it.