Saturday, April 12, 2008

Paper, Plastic or Neither

The mayor of Seattle and the city council president recently announced a plan to impose a 20-cent-per-bag "green fee" tax on paper and plastic bags distributed at grocery, convenience and drug stores. This tax is supposed to be an effort reduce garbage and encourage people to use reusable cloth bags when they do their shopping. The revenue from the tax is supposed to go to "to administer and enforce the rules, to buy and promote reusable bags, and to expand recycling, environmental education and waste prevention programs."

I am very much in favor of people using cloth bags to do their shopping. I also feel a tax or fee is a good way to encourage the uses of cloth or other reusable bags as long as the revenue is REALLY used for environmental programs. I am concerned that the revenue will just get siphoned off into the general fund and the program will just turn into a revenue generator like 2 MPH over the speed limit speeding tickets and picking one guy out of a crowd jay walking tickets. Just call me paranoid I guess.

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