JayDee
I know that I am responsible for my impact on the planet. I do not need the City Council, or the mayor to instruct me in how to reduce that impact. I use my own bags in case I remember to bring them. Sometimes I don’t bring them because I need a new paper bag for clean green food waste.
Paper bags are a no-brainer–They go in the recycle or yard waste. While one might disagree with the general principle, trees grow here naturally, and can be harvested to make paper bags to haul groceries, books, or fertilizer in. But I will only be taxed to bring groceries home in a recyclable, renewable paper bag because the City (which is but one of many) decides I should pay the tax if I forgot my reusable bags (for a tax is what it is, regardless of the “good” cause it may or may not support).
If I am so rash and irresponsible as to request a plastic bag, would that bag, in and of itself, contribute to the mid-Pacific garbage patch? Not very likely. Will it end up blowing down the street? Nope. Will cattle living in the street ingest the the bag and get sick…No, we have no cattle living in the street. Will the vast quantity of wastes generated by the City of Seattle citizens stop increasing because fractionally fewer wafer-thin plastic bags are not added to the waste stream? I got a viaduct to sell you.
I will not sign the petition because they are being paid to gather signatures. I will object to this waste of our money. It may be justifiable as social engineering by government, but when the full cost of other activities is borne by those who generate them, I will support a “tax” that covers those costs, both the vehicle tax (that doesn’t) and the bag tax (which may or may not? who knows?) The bag tax isn’t based on actual costs or impacts, it was wagged.