Why ban plastic bags when they can be taxed?
If plastic bags are a threat to the environment, the solution is easy. Ban them. Other countries have.
But who says it is about the environment? Politicians.
Start the fee at a nickel, raise it to a dime, a quarter, a dollar. Keep the threat so that it never goes away. All the while increasing the fee.
The next local government government to implement a plastic bag tax, posing as a fee, is Cuyahoga County Government based in Cleveland, Ohio. The American Indians' term for "crooked" is Cuyahoga.
How did Cuyahoga come up with ten cents a bag?
How much trash dumped in Lake Erie is caused by plastic bags?
How did they come up with an administrative fee of four cents a bag?
How much will it cost stores to implement? How much money will it cost the County to administer? Will the cost to administer exceed what is collected in fees and taxes? How much will it cost consumers? Business owners?
Where will the money go since only one person, the County Executive, has total control of how it is spent?
In the Cleveland area, 236 of its waste water treatment plants or 60 per cent of them are dumping untreated human waste into Lake Erie. What is the County doing about that? What makes plastic bags a bigger threat to the environment than untreated human waste?
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/09/hundreds_of_small_medium-size.html
One unintended consequence of plastic bag bans may be found in San Diego. Reusable grocery bags carry disease, some are fatal, may be responsible for some of the spread of hepatitis A in San Diego. So far, 18 persons have died from the recent disease outbreak there. How can anyone be sure?
San Diego is bleaching the streets every week in order to help destroy the spread of disease.
According to the National Center for Policy Analysis:
- plastic bags amount to less than one-half of one percent of all waste and landfill space
- paper bags take up 10 times more space than plastic bags
According to the Society of the Plastics Industry, plastic grocery bags:
- consume 40 percent less energy
- generate 80 percent less solid waste
- produce 70 percent fewer atmospheric emissions, and
- release up to 94 percent fewer waterborne wastes
In Brownsville, Texas, costs increased 91 per cent in eight years after it began charging for plastic grocery bags. Their answer? Increase the tax.
California is the first state to ban the plastic grocery bag.
To read Cuyahoga County's proposed plastic bag tax, it is Council ordinance O2017-0006. The law is attached in blue below. Start at page 67. It goes to page 71:
Thttps://www.scribd.com/document/361190478/20171010-MTG-AgendaAttach-1