Bag-tax forum tilts toward doing more
Attendees have concerns on waste, consumption, jobs
Tuesday, October 7 | 11:29 p.m.
MICHAEL ANDERSEN, COLUMBIAN STAFF WRITER
Jerry Powell, editor of Resource Recycling Magazine, moderates a discussion on taxing the use of disposable plastic grocery bags. Seattle has approved a tax and Portland’s new mayor is promoting one. (Zachary Kaufman/The Columbian)
Let the record show: the City of Vancouver is not officially considering requiring grocery shoppers to pay a tax of 20 cents or so on each disposable grocery bag they use.
“We have no proposal,” Public Works Director Brian Carlson volunteered, a broad smile fixed on his face. “We’re not thinking about any proposal.”
“There has been no discussion on the council on the record at all,” City Councilmember Jeanne Stewart added.
Still, the merits of such a tax — or would it be a fee? — were the topic of a two-hour debate among seven out-of-town experts in a well-promoted panel discussion in the city council chambers Tuesday afternoon. The speakers appeared at no cost to the city.
As dozens of citizens and two television cameras filed into the room, city leaders seemed poised for a hurricane.
“No shouting out loud, no laughing,” said Derek Chisholm, chairman of the city planning commission, told the crowd. “You can roll your eyes as much as you want.”
They were in for a surprise. When one speaker asked the people in the room whether they carry reusable bags, almost every hand went up.
Most citizens who spoke Tuesday seemed, if not positive about the idea, worried that it might not do enough to reduce waste.
The facts, as presented by the seven experts, who were split on the idea of a bag tax:
- Paper bag manufacturing consumes much more energy than plastic. Look at the price: 3 cents for a plastic bag, 5 to 7 cents for a paper one, said Jan Gee of the Washington Food Industry, an association of independent grocers.
- Plastic bags eventually break into tiny particles that pollute the ocean. Nobody’s yet sure how much damage that does, said Nir Barnea, a Seattle-based project manager for NOAA, the federal ocean agency. “If you don’t see it any more, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s gone,” Barnea said. “It just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces.”
- Reusable bags probably save energy over plastic. The research is incomplete, said Lisa Libby, an aide to Portland Mayor-elect Sam Adams, who has touted a fee on plastic bags. “If a reusable bag is made in China out of virgin materials and shipped here, I’m not sure we can say that is such a good idea,” she said. But generally speaking, Libby said, reusing things conserves the planet.
- Paper bags are made nearby. Plastic, cloth and other reusable ones aren’t.
That fact was enough for state Sen. Dean Takko, D-Longview, to say he opposes grocery-bag taxes at the city level and has already drafted a bill that would block them.
“We grow trees in this state, and we make paper,” Takko said. “Paper bags are jobs in this state.”
- Plastic bags make up less than 1 percent of garbage and recycling, said Patty Moore, the owner of a Sonoma, Calif., recycling business who flew to Vancouver for the event. “What about the wrap that goes around the toilet paper?” Moore said. “What about your newspaper bag? All of that is recyclable. It’s the same type of material.”
- Recycling plastic bags doesn’t solve the problem. Most recycled plastic bags become decking and patio furniture, Moore said. But it’s far better to reuse a bag than to manufacture it all over again, the panel agreed. And most plastic bags, she said, are never recycled.
- Shoppers aren’t likely to change their habits quickly without a tax. Even at New Seasons, a Portland food market which targets green consumers, only a quarter of shoppers use reusable bags, said Erin Gately of Portland’s Northwest Earth Institute.
“If we thought we could get there through education and outreach alone — absolutely,” said Libby. “But I think the question is, ‘Is this going to be enough?’”
- Grocery stores hate the tax idea. But since they have to pay for disposable bags, they’re very much in favor of reusable bags.
“Have we done enough as an industry? Absolutely not,” said Gee, the food industry spokeswoman.
Gee said Seattle grocery stores are launching a campaign to remind users to get their bags out of their car on the way into the store. They’ll be posting reminder signs in parking lots and giving out plastic reminder decals to stick on car windshields, she said.
“Right next to the thing where you get the oil change,” Gee said.
That troubled Den Fusso of Salmon Creek, one of the visitors to Tuesday’s event.
Fusso, who said she sometimes struggles to sleep at night because of the amount of plastic particles now floating in the ocean, rose with a question for Gee.
“Why, again, a plastic decal?” Fusso asked. “Could it not be paper?”
Should governments put a tax on disposable grocery bags?
On one side:
Yes. They consume energy, they pollute oceans and they’re easily replaced by reusable bags. Most shoppers won’t voluntarily change their habits unless they get a financial push.
On another side:
No. They’re not a major part of the waste stream, they’re no different from many disposable products and — if they’re paper — they’re manufactured locally.
by Howard McNeil : 10/8/08 3:45am - Report Abuse
The real problem with free plastic bags is that worldwide we manufacture between 500 billion to 1 trillion such bags per year and it costs $4000 per ton to recycle them and then you can sell that ton of recycled plastic for $32! That harsh economic fact is why there is no market for recyclers and the free plastic bags end up in landfills and in the oceans and waterways. The solution is to simply outlaw free plastic bags and thus prevent them from being manufactured in the first place. Reusable cloth bags are fine and should be encouraged but to my mind paper bags should be the only legal free bags because they are biodegradeable and recyclable can even be used as a fuel to reclaim their energy in the production of new energy. Taxing free plastic bags won't solve the problem because it does not stop their manufacture. Taxing paper bags will be punitive, counterproductive, and it simply won't work. In response to the question "paper or plastic?" I can just hear the elderly woman saying to the clerk or boxboy "Oh, no bags for me, thank you. Please just put everything back in the shopping cart. And can you please help me take these items out to my car? I'll just load everything into the back seat."