I misread the post. I'm truly sorry. I though it said San Francisco might charge for grocery fags. I'm so embarrassed.
I know! Instead of hiring someone to pick up the bag, let's hire three people at fifteen times the cost to determine how much it costs to pick up a bag!
Your tax dollars at work!
I can't say I disagree with this. I've been a lot of places where they charge for grocery bags. As a result I have a lot of nice souvenir shopping bags from all over the world. It just became a habit of carrying them in the boot (trunk) of the car and quite honestly I found it very sensible. I now carry my shooting supplies in some of those bags when I go to the range. They're tough and serve many purposes.
http://usa.aldi.com/ They have been charging for Grocery Bags for awhile. (AND they are a great place to buy Groceries)!
Will the city start charging for them?
Better yet ... How much does the city spend cleaning up the poop the homeless deposit on the side walks ... maybe the city should have a tax on poop!
Very interesting and totally meaningless figures. The 5.2 cents; Is that per bag picked up, or averaged per bag issued in San Franscico, or for one bag total? Am I to believe that San Francisco has a separate "Bag Patrol" dedicated to only picking up plastic bags and therefore with measurable dedicated expenses? And as far as the 1.4 cents per bag for recycling, the answer is simple: Don't recycle.
Liberal government and partisan press at it again; Manufacture a fake crises as an excuse to raise taxes.
put a bounty on 'em and let the homeless pick 'em up and cash 'em in
Stores already charge for bags. Only a politician would think they are free. As an example, those "free" plastic bags the store furnishes for fresh fruit and veggies cost as much per pound as those fruits and veggies.
If I read this right then this is basically a city tax on grocery bags , not the store charging you for bags.
One way to resolve this is to bring your own bags. Just hand them to the bagger at check out and smile.
You could probably use some good cloth bags as well and never have one of those plastic bags break on you again. This could be a good thing. The city gets no money from you and you don`t break your jar of pickles all over your driveway ever again. : )
I don't know why anyone, who could, wouldn't move out of SF.
If San Francisco puts a surcharge on vaseline, then they wouldn't have to go after grocery bags. Probably balance the budget to boot.
San Francisco is living up to its reputation as the most liberal city in America. Now you'll pay a premium for carrying your groceries home. A regressive tax on plastic bags is considered beneficial to the environment. Why, they've thought of everything up there! Next to that is, laying down minute rules on the care of dogs.
Why don't they join Sweden and be done with it.
The funny thing you guys as missing here is that practically ALL residents of San Francisco are in favor of this. It encourages people to bring their own bags, and I'd rather have the city generate some revenue this way than raising my property tax. I can't stand those damn plastic bags, and I have always brought my own bag to the store... the problem is that other, less considerate people, let them loose in the wind, and let them overload the landfill which MY TAXES pay for. Furthermore, it is VERY unlikely that this tax will happen in suburban areas (where I suspect most of you live) because the public wouldn't stand for it - in SF, the majority of shopping trips are walking trips to the store to get only one or two bags full of stuff. On the rare occasions when we get in a car to go on a major shopping trip, then we'll suck it up and pay a little tax, not that big a deal really.
As for the poor - it's very easy to get your hands on free canvas bags, and some stores plan to give them away - it's great PR.