“As if the cost of gas and food weren’t high enough, the Seattle City Council is planning a twenty cent tax on every grocery bag, and a costly ban on take out food containers… Enough is enough!”
“We don’t need another hit to our pocketbooks,” the exasperated voice on the radio ad tells us… but who exactly is “we”…? A consumer protection organization? Advocates for the working poor? Knee-jerk, anti-tax ideologues like my good friends at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation?
No, as Paper Noose reveals over at Blogging Georgetown, the ad is produced and paid for by one of Seattle’s most beloved and engaged civic organizations, the… uh… American Chemistry Council.
Actually, this radio ad is a creation of the ACC’s faux environmental arm, Progressive Bag Affiliates, whose stated mission is to promote “the responsible use, reuse, recycling and disposal of plastic bags,” and whose oh so “progressive” members include:
- Advance Polybag, Inc.
- The Dow Chemical Company
- ExxonMobil Corporation
- Hilex Poly Co., LLC.
- Inteplast
- Superbag Corporation
- Total Petrochemicals USA, Inc.
Yup. You can’t get much more progressive than that.
So as you listen to the ad, remember that polyethylene bags aren’t the only kind of plastic garbage these chemical companies produce. They’re also pretty damn good at astroturfing.
[audio:http://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/7801.mp3]
It might cause some of those here to toss rotten fruit in my general direction, but in this instance, I think the plastic-mongers are right.
The 20-cent bag “fee” isn’t a fee. It’s a tax.
Most, if not all, supermarkets take a nickel or so off your bill for each “customer-owned” bag they stuff with their products, and have a collection bin for bags people bring in to be reprocessed into new ones.
A great many stores have cloth grocery bags for sale at the checkstands. Not just “Whole Paycheck”–we’re talking about the likes of good old plebian Fred Meyer.
The city has been encouraging us for years to put plastic bags in those big green recycling bins they gave us. Seems the problem’s already pretty much covered, assuming the city and Waste Management (AKA the national Garbage Mafia) aren’t conspiring to take away one more service while charging us even more.
Nickels and the council are really late to the party here. It may well cost them all their jobs, assuming anyone was planning to vote for their re-election anyway before this.
Ya know, I bought a couple of those re-usable bags and take them with me to Fred Meyer when I shop. The cashier takes 25 cents off my total because I bring my own bags.
Because these bags were only $1 each to begin with, using them has already paid for them. Hey, it’s only .25 a trip, but over time, that’s some real dough for a $2.00 investment.
What the hell do you do with all those plastic bags anyway? It’s easier to deal with these reusable bags. Plastic bags have a tendency to “escape” whatever the hell you’ve tried to stuff them into, and they are basically no good once they’ve carried one load of groceries. I would stuff huge balls of plastic bags tied up in another plastic bag and chuck ’em into recycling, but that’s such a pain in the ass.
At least with the reusable bags, you just take out your groceries and the bags actually fold up nicely afterwards. I hang them by the kitchen door so it’s easy to take them with me when I go to the store. A couple of other things: they don’t cut into your hands when they are full of stuff, unlike a plastic bag; also, I only need 2 reusables to carry what needed 4-6 plastic bags before.
I don’t know what the big deal is about people not wanting to use reusable bags. They’re actually saving me real money and they’re easier and more comfortable to use.
A plastic grocery bag is derived from petroleum and weighs about 0.2 ounces (that’s what my postal scale says). Five bags (average grocery trip?) weighs right at one ounce.
A gallon of gasoline weighs 6 pounds, which would be 96 ounces (by weight ounces, as opposed to volume ounces!). Let’s say the average trip to the local grocery store is one mile each way, and burns 1/10 gallon, or 9.6 weight ounces of gasoline.
With reusable bags, people will probably go to the grocery store more frequently. You only own so many reusable bags, so you will only buy what your bags can carry. If the store provided plastic bags without costs, then there would be no limit to what you could buy.
If people go to the store 10% more often, because they use their own bags, then that is one extra trip, for every 10 trips currently taken. That will use 9.6 ounces more of gasoline for every 10 trips — which is basically equal to the 10 weight ounces that 5 plastic bags per trip for 10 trips would demand.
So the increase in gasoline burned by more frequent trips to the grocery store will be at least equal to the amount of disposable plastic bags that we are currently using.
Also, global warming will be worse. The 10 ounces of plastic bags resulting from 10 grocrey store trips are ending up in landfills (or recycled in many cases). They do not get burned, and do not add to CO2 in the atmosphere.
However, the 9.6 ounces (by weight) of gasoline used — because 11 trips are now made, instead of 10 — does get burned. Gasoline is about 86% carbon by weight, and carbon burns into 3.67 times as much CO2 by weight. So 9.6 ounces (by weight) of gasoline burns into 30.3 ounces of CO2 by weight.
So getting rid of disposable plastic bags does not really save any petroleum at all. But it does increase CO2 levels by approximately three ounces per existing grocery trip.
This is an idea that seems to be spreading. I was in Port Townsend the other weekend and thier were folks out gathering signatures to do the same kind of thing in that city.
Great idea in my opinion
Howsa bout …..
Just making a law that grocery bills include the real costs of the bags, including a recycling charge vs. the stores tc cover the landfill issue.
That way there is no tax, just a free market induced incentive for the
druggrocery store to make a profit.If a high profit, eco friendly store wants to hypocritically still give away pastic bags, let the rich folks pay for it. My gues sis safeway is going to do away with anything that nhurts the bottom line.
NEXT: toll roads!
So, given your stance on the ad, you think we DO need another hit to our pocketbooks?! Wow, finally glad you came out and said it.
So, let’s get this straight. The economy is tanking, but we need a new tax for light rail, plastic bags, another gas tax, increased car tab fees? I guess taxing people into slavery is ‘progress’ for the left.
to amuck
Nahhh … we don’t need another tax, what we do need is to raise prices to make up for our fucked up transportations system and stupid way of taking groceries home.
So .. you get to choose. You can spend $100/tank to get to work every week or we can all chip in and pay $65/year so it doesn’t cost you $100 to ge to your job cutting taters for fries at McDonalds!
As for the plastic bags, who do YOU think pays for the effin landfills now? Is it the tooth fairy? Jesus? GW Bush? Billy Gates? … or could it be YOU???
You want to go some place where there are low,low taxes … try the Congo. You will love the environment there! Electricity once a week, running water most of the time though not drinkable, no police to eat up your tax dollars. lousy schools, … sounds like your kind of place?
Tax?? C’mon. . . there is a hidden tax to every single tax payer regardless if they drink at Starbuck’s coffee or not.
Most visitors to Starbucks use disposable cups. Where do you think most of those cups end up?
Most of them, wind up in public trash cans that has to be taken away by municipalities, who, in turn, pay to have the trash hauled to Eastern Oregon.
Did you know that each and every day of the year 100 train car loads of garbage departs Seattle for Eastern Oregon landfills?
The consumers of Starbuck’s coffee should pay a fee per disposable cup that is collected by the city to cover the extra costs of trash collection & disposal by the city. Private industry caused this cost and ALL the tax payers are supposed to pick up this cost generated by private enterprise?? That’s not how the “free market” is supposed to work. That is conservative “free-loader market” at work.
Tax the plastic bags. They have one use, most of the time, and the majority of them wind up in landfills leaching their poisonous petroleum resins over time.
Conservation and environmentalism are patriotic. Squandering our resources and ruining our environment only serves to hurt America. Why do conservatives resist saving America and try to hurt America?? Why do they hate our land?
Why aren’t any douchebags listed on the members list? Responsible reuse is important with them. The last thing we need in the middle of the Pacific is a huge island of floating douchebags — unless it’s the clowns commenting over at uSP.
Will Safeway or QFC need to bag my groceries before they ring up the final bill?
McCain just said in an interview on CNN that Nouri al-Maliki’s 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq is a “pretty good timetable.” He added that “they have to be based on conditions on the ground.”
So let’s exmine McCain’s position on Iraq.
McCain is against setting a timetable for withdrawing troops from iraq. Except that he set a timetable in May of 2008. He has said that al-Maliki, in his Der Spiegel interview, was not advocating a timetable for their withdrawal (looking for link). Now he says that al-Maliki’s is “pretty good.” . But he says that Barack Obama’s 16-month timetable would be losing the war. According to McCain, the difference is that al Maliki’s is based on “conditions on the ground” and Obama’s isn’t — even though they’re both 16 months.
Can anyone explain this?
6 m
You’re already paying for bags–but the cost is hidden. This is like a toll to pay for a bridge. You see, we ALL have to pay for the bags YOU’RE dumping into landfills. So now, you use, you pay. User fees: a great Republican innovation.
DL @ 11:
Basically, what Obama’s position has always been is that the 16 months is a “goal” and weight will be given to the generals recommendations. It may last 14 months or 20 months, but we’re getting out and setting our sights on bin Laden and al Qeada. Finally!! Not staying in Iraq for 100 years, that’s not happening.
So, Obama position considers “conditions on the ground” which, has been good enough for us to start withdrawing from Iraq and killing the Taliban and al Qeada in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Which, by the way, is what Bush has FAILED to do as CIC of America’s armed forces.
Bush, has failed to lead and McSame has been right there chanting “Stay the course” right along with Bush.
13 GBS
Now explain McCain’s position, which is what I was asking if anyone could understand.
We’re winning but we can’t leave. And they want us to leave but we can’t leave. And now we can leave in 16 months but that’s not a change of position for McCain.
And if al-Maliki says we should leave in 16 months, and Obama says we should leave in 16 months, and now McCain says we should leave in 16 months, then Iraq is off the table.
How can McCain criticize Obama’s position when he has just adopted it?
DL 14:
I can sum up McSame’s position in two words:
Flippity
Floppity
DL @ 15:
So, now that al Qeada “KNOWS” we’re leaving in 16 months does any one want to actually mark their calendars to see if Iraq becomes an al Qeada safe have in Jan of 2011??
I think the Democrats ought to mark their calendars because Armageddon ain’t coming on that day.
4,100+ American lives squandered because Bush failed to be the leader American needed him to be after 9/11.
George W. Bush: worst president ever in American history. A real Benedict Arnold.
We should charge the Republican Party two hundred million dollars for every body bag the military has to use to bring a dead soldier home from the Middle East.
What’s getting lost in all the discussion about whether we are talking about “goals” or “timetables” or “conditions on the ground” is that a year and a half ago, the Bush administration was heading full-tilt in an attempt to turn Iraq into an American colony, with permanant bases and with American-British-Dutch oil companies having complete control of Iraqi oil, all protected by the permanant occupation by American troops or private firms paid for by American taxpayers. McCain was happy to go along with that plan, envisioning a permanant U.S. military presence which resembled our NATO committments in Western Europe.
The 2006 elections, and the current polls, have forced the Republicans to retreat from that goal, at least as long as is necessary to get through the 2008 elections. But anybody who thinks they won’t revert back immediatly after a successful election just hasn’t been paying attention.
19 You got it. They’ll go through a charade of making it look like they’re winding down the war, at the same time as they pump out the strategic reserve to bring the price of gas down to maybe $3.65 by mid September (and we’ll all be oh, so happy!) and the Fed prints money at a sufficiently frantic rate to make the Dow wobble up a few hundred points.
After that, all they have to do is figure out how to get McCain through a few debates without showing himself to be the doddering old buzzard he’s become.
@3 “With reusable bags, people will probably go to the grocery store more frequently. You only own so many reusable bags, so you will only buy what your bags can carry.”
No, most people will have the checker put the remaining groceries in plastic or paper bags if there isn’t room enough in their reusable bags — or they’ll buy another reusable bag.
@6 “So, given your stance on the ad, you think we DO need another hit to our pocketbooks?! Wow, finally glad you came out and said it.”
No one will be forced to pay 20 cents a bag for nonrecyclable plastic grocery bags. You’ll have the option of using reusable shopping bags. Like your mother and grandmother did, before plastic bags were invented. Our wasteful, throwaway lifestyle has gone too far. Resources aren’t limitless, and plastic bags create a huge pollution problem. But I see your point about the 20 cent fee. Instead of charging people who use throwaway plastic bags 20 cents a bag, we should execute ’em.*
* Hey just kidding! Wingnut humor.
hey goldy, since you’re such a genius and liberal sycophant can you explain to me how bags at qfc should be taxed and how ones at nordstrom’s shouldn’t? isn’t there a weird class inequity there? and why tax paper? that’s recyclable.
@18
Right on.
ArtFart spews:
We should charge the Republican Party two hundred million dollars for every body bag the military has to use to bring a dead soldier home from the Middle East.
07/25/2008 at 4:16 pm
I would be for that if we can charge you llbs for each dead body killed because of enept liberal policies in big cities. Now pay up, you owe us us a couple trillion bitch. hehehe
i don’t live in the city of seattle but do shop there once and a while…i have reusable shopping bags and don’t eat ‘take-out’.
that said i would rather see a ‘Deposit’ not a tax on the use of bags and containers…our state needs it with soda and beer bottles and cans like most other states in the union.
@13 Basically, what Obama’s position has always been is that the 16 months is a “goal” and weight will be given to the generals recommendations.
Really? Here’s Obama’s “Iraq Fact Sheet”:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dghq46wg_0hpnbkffx
that had been on his campaign Web site until recently. It was removed along with other language having to do with the surge a few weeks back. The link that had pointed to this doc now points to a New York Times op ed piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07.....ref=slogin
The scrubbed doc states:
“A SUBSTANTIAL, IMMEDIATE REDEPLOYMENT OF AMERICAN TROOPS
“There is no military solution in Iraq. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq’s leaders to
resolve their civil war is to begin immediately to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year –
now.”
All Combat Troops Redeployed by 2009: Barack Obama would immediately begin redeploying American
troops from Iraq. The withdrawal would be strategic and phased, directed by military commanders on the
ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Troops would be removed from secure areas first,
with troops remaining longer in more volatile areas. The drawdown would begin immediately with one to two
combat brigades redeploying each month and all troops engaged in combat operations out by the end of next
year.”
I’m curious where the language appears that this withdrawal is conditional as you say above?