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| -Short Attention Span Theater- | |
| Connecticut's Next Bag Tax | |
| 2017-03-27 | |
| Shaw is straight up wrong about this. Plastic bag bans and taxes shouldn't even be permitted by government. Concerned about the environment? Stop using them. Don't get the 800 pound bully involved. If you’re used to grabbing your purchases at the store by the handles of a plastic shopping bag and you live in Connecticut, get ready for a change. If all goes as planned, by sometime this fall you will probably either be figuring out a different way to cart your groceries home or you’ll be paying a bit more. Taking after the schemes enacted in California and other locations, the state is preparing to save the environment by taxing the use of plastic bags. I’m not here to defend the premise that plastic grocery bags are a great idea. We haven’t used them in years in our house. We have a set of those cloth bags with handles which you can keep using for a very long time. We make an exception every month or two and ask for paper bags because I use those for packing up the paper recycling, but otherwise it’s all cloth for us. But what Connecticut is doing is yet another exercise in the government pretending they can modify human behavior through tax policy and it stinks. They know full well that the average family that gets four or five bags of groceries per week is probably going to just pony up the extra quarter on shopping day rather than be bothered with all this nonsense. And Connecticut’s elected officials are pretty much admitting that, saying that it will be a “steady revenue stream.” Why not stop being hypocrites? If you truly think that plastic bags are an evil which should be removed from civilized realms (and there’s definitely an argument for that idea) then just ban them rather than cashing in on the game. Several states and cities have already done it. The National Conference of State Legislatures provides a list of places where various bag restrictions are either already in place or being considered. California and Hawaii have pretty much banned them entirely, along with several large cities including Chicago and Seattle. Allowing the use of the evil bags to continue flourishing while the government pockets tens of millions of dollars per year (by their own estimates) is simply hypocrisy. But even if I’m not a fan of plastic bags, is banning them at all really the answer? Even assuming you want the government micromanaging your life and the free market that much, possibly not. This think piece at Wired from last year poses the question of what you’ll be replacing them with after the ban. I prefer plastic bags. They are lightweight, strong and physically take up very little room at home. They have the advantage of allowing shifing bulk in way paper bags can never do.They are dual use items for hauling groceries and as trash bags, as well as general packaging items. The grocery store I use offers paper bags at the manned checkout stands, and plastic bags at the automated checkout, the second of which I use all the time. And when those checkouts are closed, I do have the option of requesting plastic bags.
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| Posted by:badanov |
| #8 Don't forget lice and cockroaches. Just think bags in homes with thirty cats or more. Welcome to your new home fellas. |
| Posted by: Dale 2017-03-27 18:36 |
| #7 Dems always posture around "issues" but it's always about the dollars. Climate change, fracking, Delta Smelt fish, carbon emissions, the children.... need I continue ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-03-27 13:23 |
| #6 It's not about the environment; it's about the tax grab. Dems always posture around "issues" but it's always about the dollars. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2017-03-27 11:53 |
| #5 The type of fellow that wipes once and wonders at the efficacy of a tampon tax. Were I to pass a grocery daily I could throw the day's meals in a backpack (that would frighten some, looking armed tactical survivalist and all.) As it is, a monthly run for dog food, catfish food, horse food, people food, fuel and other consumables(beer, bullets) pretty much fills my truck bed. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2017-03-27 11:22 |
| #4 to prevent disease from reusable bags the govt will eventually - mandate washing them every other week - mandate devices in the bags that light up if they haven't been washed (this should bring the price of the bag up to $20/per) - fines up to $50 for using a reusable bag that hasn't been washed on time |
| Posted by: lord garth 2017-03-27 09:44 |
| #3 Dallas, TX levied 5 cents a bag for a while but the citizens teamed up with the bag manufacturers and started preparing a law suit. The city council quickly rescinded the tax. Other tax and spend cities in Texas were never challenged like that have since doubled the tax to 10 cents a bag. |
| Posted by: Whuck the Hairy7611 2017-03-27 07:11 |
| #2 Plastic bags also come in handy as hell well walking the dog. If the pols are that concerned just require markets to have a recycle bin in the store. A lotof stores already do anyway |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2017-03-27 05:49 |
| #1 They enacted something similar (charge you 10 agurot per plastic bag) in Israel a few months ago. So, hardware stores started selling packages of plastic bags, and most people come to super with their own. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-03-27 02:19 |