3 ms·

Hey, it could be worse. I live in a place where as of Jan 1st of this year, you have to pay a tax on plastic bags (5 cents per bag). Unlike soda, just about e

by nickjj 9y ago

Hey, it could be worse. I live in a place where as of Jan 1st of this year, you have to pay a tax on plastic bags (5 cents per bag). Unlike soda, just about everyone who goes grocery shopping in small increments uses bags (because a cart is overkill). Yesterday I left the grocery store with a chicken breast sticking out of my coat pocket.

s_dev 9y ago
I live in place that brought in the plastic bag charge 5 years ago. I was against it -- thought it would be ineffective and inconvenient at best. Complete success. Irish countryside used to have plastic bags everywhere. Now they're scarce.
- nickjj 9y ago
  It depends on the location I suppose. I walk 5-6 miles a day around my neighborhood and I very rarely see plastic bags on the streets. I mainly see crushed canned drinks, fast food wrappers and other garbage that would be left over from eating / drinking on foot or in a car. Most fast food places here use paper bags too.
Thimothy 9y ago
Or, crazy thought, you could reuse those bags. A tiny dent on all that plastic wrapping that goes into landfills but...
- nickjj 9y ago
  I will now but I don't think it'll do much in the grand scheme of things. Even if you bought 1 bag every day for a year that'll be $18.25. Most people won't care enough to reuse bags and will continue doing business as usual pre-tax. Then of course, there's the ~7.4 billion other people on Earth who never even heard of a plastic bag tax so their habits won't change either. I would rather see them just stop manufacturing plastic bags and also make them illegal. If their goal is to cut down on people using them that would be the way to do it. Instead, they tax it to an amount where they are hoping more than enough people won't care enough, so they can profit off laziness while they care nothing about the environment.
  - dagw 9y ago
    Then of course, there's the ~7.4 billion other people on Earth who never even heard of a plastic bag tax so their habits won't change either. Actually a plastic bag charge or even ban becoming the norm in more and more parts of the world. If anything the US is late to this game.
- dagw 9y ago
  At least when I was in the States a few month ago, the bags I got at the grocery store where of really terrible quality (this was at Publix). They barely made from the store to my apartment without falling apart. Reusing them was completely out of the question. Most bags you get in most places I've been in Europe are much sturdier and can easily be reused a dozen times.

by nickjj 9y ago

s_dev 9y ago

I live in place that brought in the plastic bag charge 5 years ago. I was against it -- thought it would be ineffective and inconvenient at best. Complete success. Irish countryside used to have plastic bags everywhere. Now they're scarce.

nickjj 9y ago
It depends on the location I suppose. I walk 5-6 miles a day around my neighborhood and I very rarely see plastic bags on the streets. I mainly see crushed canned drinks, fast food wrappers and other garbage that would be left over from eating / drinking on foot or in a car. Most fast food places here use paper bags too.

Thimothy 9y ago

Or, crazy thought, you could reuse those bags. A tiny dent on all that plastic wrapping that goes into landfills but...

nickjj 9y ago
I will now but I don't think it'll do much in the grand scheme of things. Even if you bought 1 bag every day for a year that'll be $18.25. Most people won't care enough to reuse bags and will continue doing business as usual pre-tax. Then of course, there's the ~7.4 billion other people on Earth who never even heard of a plastic bag tax so their habits won't change either. I would rather see them just stop manufacturing plastic bags and also make them illegal. If their goal is to cut down on people using them that would be the way to do it. Instead, they tax it to an amount where they are hoping more than enough people won't care enough, so they can profit off laziness while they care nothing about the environment.
- dagw 9y ago
  Then of course, there's the ~7.4 billion other people on Earth who never even heard of a plastic bag tax so their habits won't change either. Actually a plastic bag charge or even ban becoming the norm in more and more parts of the world. If anything the US is late to this game.
dagw 9y ago
At least when I was in the States a few month ago, the bags I got at the grocery store where of really terrible quality (this was at Publix). They barely made from the store to my apartment without falling apart. Reusing them was completely out of the question. Most bags you get in most places I've been in Europe are much sturdier and can easily be reused a dozen times.