It looks like the State Assembly will soon see the proposal for a 5-cent tax on plastic shopping bags in NYC.
The city and State of NY already have a bag recycling law for large chain stores, but without a tax it doesn't do much to decrease the number of bags being used and wasted.
It remains to be seen if this will get public approval. Will it be a common sense fund raiser that also does environmental good, or will it be the straw that broke the camel's back in bad financial times? Talk about the huge MTA fare hikes and people complain but shrug, accepting it as inevetible. But a nickel bag tax? Right now could make New Yorkers IRATE.
BTW my favorite, favorite part of NYC's bag recycling law is that stores that take bags for recycling must also offer re-usable bags for sale. More and more people are using them, and it is good to see.
2 comments:
It is great that so many of the stores are offering reusable bags for sale but I wish so many of them were not made out of plastic. Sure, they look like cute woven bags but the content is really plastic. My concern is: what happens to those cheap reusable plastic bags that will eventually wear out? They'll likely end up in the landfill. *sigh* Then again, I guess ANY reusable bag that wears out will likely end up in a landfill. Still, I'd rather see cloth bags than plastic ones.
The Green Cat makes a good point about the cheap woven bags. I have put some pretty cheap reusable bags through some rigorous use and they last long enough to more than justify their use. One thing to avoid is overloading bags. I found out through trial and error that the ones I get aren't built to withstand more than about 12 pounds each. I bring four with me on errands and I am not likely to overload any one bag.
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