Pinning consumers with diaper tax wrong solution

www.oaklandtribune.com ^ | Monday, February 24, 2003 | Oakloand Tribune Staff

[NEWwoman]

STATE SEN. Don Perata, D-Oakland, has rarely seen a problem that he couldn't fix with a tax.

Perata says disposable diapers are one of the most pervasive problems in California's landfills. So Perata is introducing a bill in the Legislature that would impose a quarter-cent recycling tax -- or fee, in our current political language -- on disposable diapers.

The fee on both child and adult diapers, which would cost young parents and other consumers about $15 to $20 a year, would be used for local communities to set up diaper recycling programs throughout the state.

Perata says he believes the tax makes sense because it is aimed at users, not all consumers. He says his goal is not to get people to stop using disposable diapers, but to allow recycling programs to be set up.

State Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, says people already pay garbage fees.

"This is adding a tax for the sake of a tax. It proves what I've been saying all along, that the Democrats want to tax the poop out of us."

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, diapers can take up to 500 years to decompose. More than 20 billion diapers, about 3.3 million tons, were sent to landfills in 2000.

Perata says these bottom wrappers are one reason the state is failing to meet its goal of recycling 50 percent of garbage. He also says by 2015, adult diapers will exceed child diapers.

Perata says a pilot program setting up a local diaper recycling plan in Santa Clarita in Los Angeles County has been successful.

While we need to solve the problem of the growing number of disposable diapers, we should do it without the tax ... excuse us ... fee.

While $15 to $20 seems like a small amount, young working families don't need another cost added to their budgets. And neither do the elderly on fixed incomes.

We are for the concept of recycling, but a tax to finance it seems premature.

[NEWwoman]

"This is adding a tax for the sake of a tax. It proves what I've been saying all along, that the Democrats want to tax the poop out of us."

[mewzilla]

If this guy thinks disposable diapers are a landfill's worst problem, he knows nothing about landfills.

[KnutCase]

"...by 2015 adult diapers will exceed child diapers"...?????

Probably because all Democrat politicians will be the ones wearing them!

[NEWwoman]

This guy (Perata) wanted a nickle tax on all bullets, is the author of many gun control bills, yet he himself has a concealed weapons permit, which is very hard for an average Joe or Jane in his part of California.
Can you spell hypocrite?

[NEWwoman]

"...by 2015 adult diapers will exceed child diapers"...?????

Depends.

[GOP_Proud]

Clever.

[NativeSon]

The real culprit is alllll those babies that have the nerve to be born, wearing diapers THEN growing old and wearing diapers again! Where's Planned Parenthood when they're needed! </sarcasm>

[AnAmericanMother]

If this guy thinks disposable diapers are a landfill's worst problem, he knows nothing about landfills.

Not only that, but he's creating another problem. The alternative to disposable diapers is the old-fashioned reusable cloth kind. With THOSE, you use a ton of water, detergent, and EEE-vil chlorine bleach (the oxygen stuff just doesn't cut it, believe me!) to get them clean for re-use. Even if you use a diaper service, you still have to wash them out in the toilet at home (using considerable water), and then once the diaper service picks them up (using that EEE-vil gasoline or diesel fuel to do it) they carry them off to their massive steam laundry where even greater quantities of water, detergent, and chlorine bleach are used to clean them before redelivering them (burning yet more fuel).

Not to mention that, as your kids get older, you wind up double and triple-diapering them because the cloth ones just don't have the absorption capacity of the disposable ones with all their gel & waterproof coatings. And rubber pants will give your kids a heck of a diaper rash, even if you are quite vigilant.

I was a good little environmental wacko and used cloth for my first child's first year. After that the production outran the capacity, so to speak, and I just gave up.

Taxing disposables will simply drive more folks to cloth diapers with different environmental consequences. And since using cloth diapers is such a pain, many of them will probably wind up in the landfill anyhow. Not to mention the black market in disposable diapers . . . :-D

Perata obviously never changed a cloth diaper in his life, if he's married with children he must have let his wife do it. (And she's gonna kill him when she hears about this.)

[KnutCase]

I suggest that a complete switch to cloth diapers take place immediately. And when they get filled they should be sent to Perata's office. He would soon get the message, that this proposal stinks!

[mewzilla]

This is more about finding a palatable way to pass another tax than it is about wise landfill management. Sounds like they're fixing to find out the hard way.

[mewzilla]

BTW, as big a pain and a drain on other resources as cloth diapers might be, they don't take up a lot of space in landfills. Keeping as much out of landfills as possible is a good thing, this goober notwithstanding.

[.38sw]

I can't help but wonder how these disposables will be recycled. Who will want to keep them until they can be dropped off at a recycling locaton or picked up by curbside recyling? I'll bet they'll end up in the landfill anyway. Maybe I'm missing something here.

[goldstategop]

Next thing the Democrats will propose is taxing every one's bowel movements and when they've barfed up. It will interesting to see how far Big Brother can take squeezing not just the crap out of you but what's left in your wallet along with it.

[giotto]

I used cloth diapers for about a week. That was all I needed to realize that disposable ones were far more cost effective. As for the environmental aspects, one whiff of the diaper pail convinced me that the air inside our house was more important than the air outside.

[AnAmericanMother]

I used to live in the most polluted district of Atlanta - NPU-D, the D stands for "DUMP". We had more Superfund sites, more heavy industry, more dumps, and more landfills than any other district in the city. We had perpetual problems with the landfills adjoining the bank of the Chattahoochee River. They were sited there long ago, before anybody realized the groundwater & drainage problems. Somebody had the bright idea of sending the garbage out by rail, but the folks at the other end of the line weren't thrilled about getting Atlanta's garbage.

What's the answer? Incineration (that'll bring out another set of doomsayers)?

[mewzilla]

Maybe I'm missing something here.

Just that this has nothing to do with wise management policy, and everything to do with picking taxpayers' pockets :)

[Adder]

Why not just send him the disposable ones so he can start the recycling program right now...for free! How does one recycle a disposable diaper anyway. Recycle it into what?

[mewzilla]

First and best thing at the moment is to do our best to limit what we throw out. Garbage is the gift that keeps on giving. It really does make a lot of sense to recycle as much as we can and limit what we send to our landfills.

[Salvation]

This is discriminating against babies. The guy needs a FReeping talking to.

[KnutCase]

Better idea: he says it would only cost $15 to $20 a year. Okaaaay....I'll be happy to pay him 20 Bucks a year to clean my grandchildren's diapers.