Posted on 04/03/2008 7:45:44 AM PDT by AngelesCrestHighway
To reduce trash, Mayor Greg Nickels wants Seattle shoppers to pay a fee on all disposable bags — paper and plastic — at grocery, convenience and drug stores. Customers would be charged a 20-cent "green fee" per bag used at the checkout line. If approved by the City Council, the fee would take effect Jan. 1. "The answer to the question 'Paper or plastic?' should be 'Neither,' " Nickels said at a news conference Wednesday morning. "Both harm the environment. Every piece of plastic ever made is still with us in the environment, and the best way to handle waste is not to create it in the first place." Nickels said he wants to encourage shoppers to use reusable bags. The city plans to distribute one free bag to every household before the fee would go into effect. City Council President Richard Conlin, chairman of the utilities committee, and Councilmembers Tim Burgess and Sally Clark support the mayor's proposal. "It's about the use of scarce resources, about pollution of our environment, about litter in our streets and parks, and the costs, both economically and environmentally," Conlin said at the news conference. Retailers would keep five cents of the fee to cover the cost of implementing the fee.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Ahhhh, yet another reason to stay the hell out of Seattle. I moved up here (western Washington) ten years ago, and have yet to drive into Seattle for any reason (THROUGH Seattle to “get to the other side”-—yes, but not as a final destination). One wonders what the planners of I-5 were thinking when they ran it underneath whatever that building complex is (Seattle Center???).
The mayor of Berkeley north has never passed up a chance to put his mug on TV - he once chartered a helicopter to view Seattle’s watershed, looking at the trees. The libs are the ones who shoved these plastic grocery bags down the public’s throat in the first place - they wreck things with their feelgood ideas, then come back with another idiotic plan to repair the damage. Typical.
Those people are completely insane. Like to proverbial in a simmering pot of water, they are too dense to realize that they are destroying any sense of quality of life in their community.
Just keep your crazies in your own neighborhood, Mayor Nipples!
I’m not from Washington — but what a craphead this guy is! A buddy of mine here in South Florida calculates his personal expenses as part of his budget every year. They went up 13.5% from last year primarily because of the increases in the cost of food and gas and now this guy wants to ADD to the grocery bill. The voters there deserve what they get if they keep this man in office.
You are probably thinking of the Convention Center. They built that over the freeway intentionally so that the normal expansions of the freeway system that come as a result of growth would be impossible.
Liberalism is a mental disorder...
Yah, thinking it over, what exactly is the concept of substituting a non-renewable massively polluting resource that does not biodegrade but lasts (with current microbes) FOREVER killing ocean life that swallow plastic and filling up our landfills FOREVER for paper bags that just rot and make nice dirt over a short amount of time . . .?
You would think the obvious
paper comes from trees, trees can be grown and harvested, making jobs for citizens
would hit this loon at some point.
Used to live in WA, split when Dizzy Dixie took over. It’s been going downhill since.
I lived in Kirkland for many years and hated going into Seattle for anything. I would go to see the Blue Angeles, over to the 4th of July fireworks show and maybe to Pikes market for seafood but that was it!
The one thing that p.o.’d me the most is that damn statue of Lenin in Fremont! I wish someone would pull it down like they pulled down that statue of Hussein in Baghdad...
Cheez--how asinine. So their gridlock is self-imposed?? I hadn't heard "the story" behind why that was done.
"Liberalism is a mental disorder..."
Given the above example, even worse than I thought.
I like the idea to charge for the plastic bags.
I also support bottle bills that require deposits for the glass bottles.
For shopping, I choose to use those large Sam’s insulated bags, and am satisfied with their utility/protection of the environment.
As an aside...do you live in Seattle?
The reusable bag that my wife picked up in Albertson’s the other day is A) coated in plastic and B) not much less flimsy than the single-use plastic bags.
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