Posted on 05/04/2008 5:12:17 PM PDT by Stoat
Forget the canvas sacks at home? Shoppers at grocery, convenience and drug stores will pay the price starting Jan. 1, if the City Council approves. A family buying six bags of groceries a week would spend $62.40 a year in bag fees. The city will issue one free reusable shopping bag to each household.
"The answer to the question 'Paper or plastic?' should be 'Neither,' " Nickels said at a news conference. "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."
The proposed fee, the first of its kind in the nation, is the latest green legislation from a mayor intent on making environmental stewardship his legacy.
Nickels and Conlin have been working on a "zero-waste" strategy to reduce trash and encourage recycling. They also announced Wednesday a proposed ban on plastic-foam food containers and cups at food-service businesses, starting Jan. 1. Nonrecyclable plastic containers and utensils would be banned in 2010.
"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, of throwing away a piece of Earth we have an opportunity to protect and preserve," Conlin said at the news conference, which Councilmembers Tim Burgess and Sally Clark also attended.
(heavily edited to comply with Free Republic posting requirements)
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
"Never mind that Kyoto was rejected by BOTH Clinton and President Bush....if the US won't sign it and make it Federal policy, we'll just adopt it anyhow because we're hysterical Lefties and that makes us so very much smarter than anyone else...."
Pingaling!
I agree with the charge for plastic bags. What a waste! I have used those large Sam’s insulated bags for years, and resent the waste that the throw-away bags produce.
Yep, they asked for it, they got it. Let them feel the pain.
The government has no businsss dictating this issue. The cost of bags is factored into the cost of goods charged by the stores. If the stores want to ‘’give’’ away bags with their groceries, it’s their business.
Loook for retailers to support this measure. Those bags are expensive!
>I agree with the charge for plastic bags.
and naturally, you and the government have the right to tax everyone for their choices when they do not agree with yours.
Stupidity on parade.
Not that we don't pay an arm and a leg for food as it is. If I lived in Seattle I would just do my shopping in the suburbs.
And you don't feel that this should be left up to the free market, but that Government needs to step in and not ban them but make money off of them?
Maybe they’ll realize their mistake...but I doubt it. Somehow the libs will begin to blame “Big Bag Manufacturers” for the cost.
(Here in NJ they say they want to tax fast food. They think we don't know they're already taxing fast food at 7%, which means NJ probably makes more on a Big Mac than the McDonald's shareholders do.)
ML/NJ
Why not mandate all Seattle residents just kill themselves? That will reduce the city’s carbon footprint down to 0.
>>>>I agree with the charge for plastic bags. What a waste!
I read somewhere they cost less than one penny to produce and biodegrade after 4 months.
Publicly-humiliated-by-our-state-once-more Ping.
Screw ‘em. Maybe they’ll carry home the bug spray one week and their produce the next in their nice little canvas pouch of death. Let Darwin sort ‘em out.
elect idiots and pay forever for that mistake
That would be regressive. They’ll need another government giveaway program for the poor to compensate. Isn’t it neat how this works?
No chit!
Do you suppose they lie awake at night scheming to bring shame on the once great state of Washington?
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