Bag Ban – W Seattle

[Homer]

According to the blog, it did VERY POORLY here in W. Seattle. Anyone know why? I thought we were somewhat progressive on topics like this!?

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[Bayou]

IMHO- had it actually been a BAN on plastic bags, it probably would have passed with flying colors. However, the poorly thought out legislation would have instituted a 20¢ FEE on plastic bags, which many people saw as unreasonable. It was also thought that it would have put many low income people at a severe disadvantage.

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[JenV]

I consider myself to be a pretty progressive person, and I voted the bag tax down. Why? Because people re-use plastic bags for everything from bringing their lunch to work to recycling/garbage and picking up dog poop. To attach a fee to those bags would discourage people from getting them and then reusing them. No free plastic bags? Well, it’s either go BUY disposable bags (wasteful and expensive) or stop picking up dog poo (disgusting).

It was a typical “go green” knee-jerk reaction, and I am happy that so many people saw through it for what it was.

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[cjboffoli]

I voted FOR the bag ban, though 20 cents per bag may be too high as some have suggested. Part of my decision was based on my desire to see a reduction in the use of disposable plastic bags (derived from imported oil). Another factor was a reaction to the aggressive marketing of out of state chemical and petroleum special interests. And finally, I’ve traveled extensively in the developing world and have seen firsthand how light plastic bags have absolutely ruined the landscape with every bit of shrub and bush covered with tattered plastic. I realize this last factor isn’t directly related to my City but it more philosophical.

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[KBear]

JenV, plastic bags aren’t free. You already pay for the ones you get at the grocery store, although the grocer embeds the cost of bags in the price of groceries. It would actually be less wasteful if people would deliberately buy only the disposable bags they need, and re-use other bags whenever possible.

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[JoB]

I believe voting this down was the knee jerk reaction.

The big justification on the forum was that it was a burden on the poor… yet the poor south of us voted for the bag tax. take a look at the white center/west seattle boundary on the map.. and the pocket of yes votes in West Seattle. It’s apparent those with less resources didn’t agree with their affluent neighbors.

when you pick up dog poo with a plastic bag you encase it forever in a landfill. Biodegradable bags will eventually break down.. and they are available for a dollar a box at the dollar store.. something like 200 in every box. I buy mine there.

Granted, hubby would have to use something else to carry his lunch to work every day.. but i am already working on an alternate lunch sack for him.

I think they should give the tax another go… and in the meantime bag collection barrels outside grocery stores really cut down on the litter.

The attempt at passing this bill has already changed habits for some. the same people who voted it down now carry their own bags or offer an embarrassed excuse at checkout and enough of us have begun to bring our own bags to the grocery that the clerks no longer frown at us…

it’s been a real learning curve for me… I carry a couple of envirosacs in my purse, but i tend to shop in infrequent large shopping trips and i often forget to grab extra bags before i go into the store. I used to shrug and say.. oh well… and the plastic bags piled up.

A friend offered this.. ask for your groceries to be put back into your cart if you forget your bags.. and load them at the car.

I am going to try it. I am betting it won’t take many times for me to remember to grab those bags before i go into the store:(

LOL.. sometimes i have to learn things the hard way.

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[flowerpetal]

I voted for the bag use fee. Twenty cents is did not seem exorbitant and should not have been prohibitive to lower income individuals. All of the totes and bags that I have at home and in the car come from yard sales and value village. I have never paid more than a dollar for any of them, and most were twenty five or fifty cents. Paying the fee for five bags at the grocer would have bought a used bag which will last for years.

And grocery bags are too big for dog poo unless you are the owner of the two mastiffs in another thread. And by design, plastic grocery bags have small holes in the bottom which reduces stress and unintended rips. I’m not reaching down to pick up poo with a bag that has a hole in it.

But the voters spoke and I respect that. I think the whole activity successfully reduced the amount of plastic bags being used.

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[Bayou]

CJB, I can sympathize with your experience in the developing world. After Katrina, my mom spent several weeks on the MS coast helping several families to gut their homes. One of the things that stuck with me the most was the photos and her recollections of the masses of plastic bags that littered the coastline.

Those mental images haunted me and stuck with me as we started our creative venture at RatCityRags.com. If you have a good, reusable market bag, there is no need to generate more plastic into the world/landfills. If you have a stack of plastic bags at home, many area QFCs have a recycling station for them. I’m also a big fan of biobags for food and pet waste. If you’ve not tried them before, you can get free samples from King County. They are made from corn and are 100% compostable and biodegradable.

http://your.kingcounty.gov/solidwaste/garbage-recycling/biodegradable-bags.asp

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[maplesyrup]

My guess is that voting the fee down was at least in part a statement by the residents that they’re tired of the city’s tendency to be a nanny state. I actually heard that sentiment expressed on a couple of – not right wing- radio shows.

I supported the fee because it’s a very minor inconvenience yet has potentially important consequences. The other day I read (IIRC) there’s a floating plastic garbage swill the size of Texas in the South Pacific. Not contributing to that is worth the price of a lunchbox.

And don’t even get me started on the dog poop argument, it’s asinine.

But alas the city tries to stick its nose into people’s lives too often and an idea that was actually good was the victim this time around.

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[flowerpetal]

I don’t think that making an effort to have a cleaner, healthier environment is being a nanny state. I’m old enough to remember that once upon a time we paid a deposit on glass soda bottles. It worked really well to get people to return them for the refund. And eventually we turned away from glass bottles to cans and plastic. Sigh.

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[beachdrivegirl]

JenV like you I did not support the bag tax for very that very reason as well as the fact that paper bags would be taxed and the tax was only being enforced at grocery stores.

What about Macy’s, Nordy’s, or Sears why aren’t their bags taxed?

IMO, this was a band-aid solution and not well thought out. I defin. would be open to revisions of the proposed tax.

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[JoB]

maplesyrup…

i agree with the why…

but “you can’t make me do that” has to be about the most juvenile argument i have ever heard… no matter how you dress it up with justifications.

I don’t say that to be mean-spirited, but if we don’t point out the juvenile nature of that self serving argument, it will become increasingly more difficult to pass anything for the common good.

That isn’t pioneer independence at work… the pioneers understood the need for sacrifice to the common good… Their survival depended upon it.

This is the myth of pioneer independence at work… the romanticized version… not the reality.

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[CMP]

This thread seems a bit high and mighty to me. What do litter problems in developing countries have to do with me potentially having to pay $.20 per bag at my local Thriftway? That’s a waste management problem, not a bag problem. The bags wouldn’t be scattered around if people wouldn’t litter.

I voted against the tax because I think it’s an unreasonable amount to pay per bag. Five cents maybe, but $.20 is ridiculous. I think the geographic breakdown of how people voted to be rather worthless too. I don’t feel this is a poor vs. affluent issue…I’m in the low end of the middle class and I don’t feel like parting with any more money than I have to. It’s like the baffoons who want parking meters at the Junction, which I’ll never understand. A penny saved is a penny earned and every cent matters in this economy. I applaud those who voted against the tax…I think people might finally be coming to their senses which is a relief to see.

For the record, I’ve been using my own bags since I went away to college in the ’90s, but I do forget every now and then and sure do appreciate having those plastic bags to use as garbage can liners.

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[KBear]

“I voted against the tax because I think it’s an unreasonable amount to pay per bag. Five cents maybe, but $.20 is ridiculous.”

Um, that’s the whole idea. Sounds like they had the fee set just right.

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[CMP]

High enough for 53% of us to vote against it. Woo hoo!

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[bluebird]

I voted with JenV, BDG, and CMP. All rational responses. Thank you.

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[Homer]

JoB, right on the money…If you don’t like the 20cent fee, bring your own bags! Plain and simple. The practically give them away now. If you occasionally forget them, you pay 20cents and it went to a worthy cause for those few times.

Yes, re-using plastic bags ONCE in your garbage or ONCE for dog poop. These are thick plastic bags that never break down. How about those cheap biodegradable bags that are cheap and break down as will the poop. Just not a compelling enough reason to not pay a bit extra for keeping more of these bags out of our waterways, landfills, and yards!

About the geographic affluence issues, just as a note, it was shown that those that make the least money, tend to give the most as well so the statistics here don’t surprise me much at all.

Just a shame Seattle couldn’t see the benefits…and yes, maybe if this one started and was successful, they could have adapted it to make all other stores like Macy’s, Nordstrom’s, etc. have to comply as well but we had to have started somewhere. Not to mention that they started with grocery stores since how many times do you go to Macy’s in a week and come out with 8 plastic bags for your purchases?

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[JoB]

if more people carried bags, stores like Macey’s would provide reusable bags with a tasteful logo for a small fee… talk about cheap advertising.

in the meantime, the little bags i carry get raves at the local department stores and are easier to carry.

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[beachdrivegirl]

where’s macey’s? what do they sell?

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[Homer]

Wow, beachdrivegirl, I really hope you’re not being sarcastic here as that’s not much of a counter argument to a very valid statement when you knock someone for a spelling error. For the sake of this forum and W. Seattle as a whole, I really hope you are sincere about your comment and if so, it’s a clothing department store downtown…if not (and I hope it is), it’s people like you that make me very afraid during elections that you’re going to vote for something superficial like the best looking candidate, rather than for what they actually stand for! Anyway, back to the issue at hand…

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[JoB]

Macy’s is a clothing/department store similar to Nordstroms.

The most famous store is in New York City and you probably watch their thanksgiving day parade on television.

In recent years, the chain has taken over many other long standing department stores.. like Meir and Frank in Portland.

I don’t know if there are local Macy’s stores since i rarely shop in them unless i am traveling and i don’t know why because i generally find something to buy there… but they have been the local big deal in a large number of cities i have lived in.

hope that answers your question…

unless of course you were just sarcastically flagging my typing error?

It is hard to believe you aren’t familiar with Macy’s.

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[JoB]

BTW..

if you are using plastic bags for garbage can liners, the heavier bags from department stores are a lot more reliable and generally don’t come with the small holes in the bottom.

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[beachdrivegirl]

Sorry Homer you must have missed JoB’s sincere comment to me in the Fresh Bistro thread here:

https://westseattleblog.com/blog/forum/topic.php?id=5111

I was just returning the kindness. :)

Oh I hadnt realized that Macey’s & Macy’s were the same place my bad!

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[CMP]

I don’t like the $.20 fee AND I bring my own bags, have been for years. It’s the principal, just like installing pay meters in areas that are currently free. These plastic bags are obviously multi-purpose to a lot of people and I for one, appreciate that they’re free and would like to keep them that way. There’s a lot more junk in a landfill to worry about than some plastic baggies people.

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[JoB]

beachdrivegirl..

i really do wish you would find something useful to do with your time. Looking through my posts to find something you can use to pay me back must consume tremendous amounts of your time.

and to be honest.. when you look for typos in my posts you are picking on a cripple since due to documented cognitive disabilities, i have to pull and edit most posts 2 or 3 times to try to remove missed typing errors, transpositions and misspelled words. I am not sure that i would be able to communicate at all without spell check…

But it is your time… and i am well aware that you have chosen not to believe in my illness or my disabilities. I really do wish i could get that out.. but reality intrudes.

Still.. picking on people for things they really can’t help is just a bit.. well, you know… personal… and distasteful.

I admit I was tired and cranky that day… and tired of your nonsense… and i have apologized for rudeness… I edited my remarks that day.. but you didn’t do the same, did you?

if you scroll down a post or two on the conversation you just linked to… you will find that I responded to an appropriate chastisement with some grace.

I apologize to anyone reading this, but when this same pattern occurred with beachdrivegirl once before I deferred to the request that i ignore this type of behavior and it got increasingly worse over several months, deteriorating to little more than name calling.

This kind of continual harassment only stopped when another outlet was found… but apparently that isn’t enough any more.

I will not tolerate that kind of harassment nor will i stop posting on the WSB forum to avoid it…

I even tried putting those who were harassing on ignore, but because of a glitch in the program, if you ignore someone you lose any thread they have posted last on… which can make conversation not only difficult but down right impossible when a group of people choose to exploit that glitch.

my only option is to call this kind of bull when and where it happens.

I apologize for airing this dirty laundry.. but hopefully it will be short lived.

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