Thursday’s column: Trying to solve a trashy problem
One of life’s little ironies concerns those plastic grocery sacks ubiquitous to just about every grocery and drug store and many others.
Remember when those were first introduced, back in the 1980s? Using them was considered friendly to the environment.
The alternative — brown paper sacks — required felling huge forests each year. Every plastic sack saved a bit of a shade-producing, carbon dioxide-consuming tree.
Hundreds of billions of that nettlesome Swedish invention later, we are reckoning with environmental and other issues they present.
Most of them are made from natural gas. When they degrade, which is slowly, they release chemicals into the groundwater.
They stuff our landfills, kill some wildlife, blow along our streets and get hung up in out-of-reach branches, too. They mar the environment.
Just take a walk on the Roanoke River greenway, as I did Tuesday, and keep your eyes peeled on waterside trees. You’ll spot those little litter flags fluttering in the breeze.
Today, Roanoke mowing crews spend as much time cleaning up litter as they do mowing grass on municipal land along city streets, City Manager Chris Morrill said.
The bags account for about 10 percent of the refuse mowing crews clean up, said city public works director Bob Bengtson. Unlike many other types of litter, the potential damage they can cause by getting fouled in mowing equipment is significant, he added.
Translation: City taxpayers, you’re footing the bill for those cleanup efforts.
That’s one of the reasons we should pay attention to a couple of bills floated in the General Assembly. One, by a Henrico County lawmaker, would impose a 20-cent tax on plastic grocery bags to discourage shoppers from using them.
Another bill, by Del. Onzlee Ware, would require that hair-thin plastic bags be thick enough to make them worth re-using.
That way, shoppers would be more likely to reuse them, and fewer would end up in public landfills, or as litter that needs to be cleaned up, reasons Ware, D-Roanoke.
“We need to raise the issue and talk about whether there’s something different we can be doing here,” said Ware, who’s opposed to a per-bag tax or fee.
A nickel-per-bag tax added in Washington, D.C. last year cut Washingtonians’ use of plastic by 86 percent — from 22 million bags per month to 3 million in January alone.
Back in November, when Roanoke.com conducted an unscientific web poll about plastic grocery sacks, 579 people cast ballots.
The question was: “Would you support restrictions on plastic bags?
About 34 percent voted “No, leave them alone.” Another 15 percent voted for a fee on the bags. And 48 percent said they should be banned.
Wednesday, I conducted my own man-on-the-parking-lot poll outside Kroger at Towers Shopping Center.
Greg Land, who was wheeling a shopping cart full of brown-paper-sack groceries through the parking lot, said a per-bag fee on plastic sacks “would be ridiculous.” In his house, “We recycle all the bags we use.”
“I wouldn’t be willing to pay a fee for them,” agreed Lloyd Hairston. “It’s like buying something you don’t have a purpose for.”
Brenda Dearing said she wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to a ban, provided Kroger gave away those reusable mesh sacks the grocery chain now sells for 99 cents each.
My wife uses those mesh bags. They’re far superior to plastic, because you can get more groceries into them. And they’re far superior to paper bags because they don’t rip.
But as for a fee, Dearing added,“I can hardly pay for my food now.”
Lobbyists for merchants already have lined up against bag legislation, which they argue could force retailers to pass along higher costs to customers.
Ware is right the issue should be talked about, perhaps studied.
But if you haven’t noticed, good sense is about as rare in Richmond these days as statues of Yankee generals.
So those bag bills are probably doomed.
January 13, 2011 - 6:00 AM
Was this here since yesterday?
A 50 cent tax on printed newspapers would also be in order. I see plenty of them blowing around too. And they are a % of “litter” that city workers are being paid to pick up. And once they get into a landfill they don’t biodegrade all that quickly either.
Dan, do you really want Roanoke to be like DC?
How about a 50 cent tax on newspapers Dan? Care to comment?
Sense in any political body of any stripe is hard to come by.
The common sense solution…….charge the fee for the bags unless the customer brings in bags for recycling. (I am thinking grocery store here.) Convenience stores go to paper.
Let’s talk about a tangental issue……styrofoam peanuts. There is a starch alternative. The problem with them is they tend to degrade in the parcel they are protecting if it is really humid. They degrade into a residue that looks like a bird has had a really good time right there. Then even that disappears. For personal shipping, wadded up newspaper, preferably with Dan’s column in it, works well. (Sorry Dan….Sarah Palindrome made me do it!) commercial shipping is a different story. Many are using inflatable bags. Others use bubble wrap. The inflatable bags are least harmful. ( Just an FYI…all plastics are made with petroleum components.).
The key to changing the bagging is to do it slowly. My wife fussed at me about the bags, but I tend to reuse them until they bust..
As bad as the litter may seem, go back to the 60s and 70s. Litter on the roadside was way worse. People used to chuck anything out the window.
Does this need to be handled at the state level? Can the local governments handle this?
Ah the iPad. The automatic spelling correction is sometimes a wee bit too aggressive. Sarah Palindrome ??? LOL.
Isn’t this typical of every environmental “solution”? They cause more problems than they solve.
1. Witness Algore’s demand that ethanol comprise 10% of every gallon of gas. Result: Price of corn driven up; corrosion of gasoline tanks.
2. “Clean energy” windmills that the kooks demandef are now killing birds and uglifying the pristine mountaintop wilderness.
3. EPA’s early 1970′s directive on air pollution: ‘Result’: Global temperatures have risen after a cooling period from 1940-1970. Environment whack explanation? The pollutants used 1940-70 were of a different “safer” kind that didn’t attach to molecules in a certain way. Yet when asked, “Well then why not repeal the clean air standards of the 70s to reduce global warming?”, these nuts hem and haw. You have to learn to tap dance a lot when you’re a liberal kook. Too many thorny contradictions to explain.
I hate those plastic bags. They have no structure and when filled with groceries, they tip right over and spill everything out into the trunk. I carry canvas bags but usually forget to take them in! I ask for paper at Kroger. They have those nice sturdy handles.
Plastic is evil! Ban the bags and get them out of the environment. Flood the market with canvas and mesh bags. People will soon get over their attachment to plastic.
You can get in 6 cloth bags what would take 40 plastic ones. It seems a no-brainer.
#2 Dan’s commented on this many times in the past, Bob H. Are you imitating a broken record?
I can’t help but wonder Dan, have you run the numbers on this?
If DC has reduced its consumption of plastic bags 86% (and, BTW, how do you know that a portion of the decline isn’t from people shopping elswhere to avoid the tax-like they do on cigarettes all the time)then have they reduced their litter control workforce accordingly? Have they reduced taxes to their citizens for this windfall?
What is the annual cost of litter control to the city of Roanoke? Since Chris Morrell says they spend half their time on cleanup, and 10% of that cleanup is plastic bags, then that equates to 5% of the TOTAL time being spent on platic bag cleanup. How much is that cost?
And, how much revenue would be generated from taxing plastic bags a nickel? Compare these 2 numbers to determine if a nickel tax is the right number.
I say, let Roanoke City retailers charge the tax on plastic bags. Roanoke County and the outlying vicinities could use the increase in sales that will generate at their retail stores as people will go there to do their shopping to avoid the tax.
But Roanoke city can make up that lost revenue by taxing newspapers at 50 cents per each. That would raise something like $18M for Roanoke City (based on the RT circulation numbers)!
What is that you say? But the RT wouldn’t sell as many copies if the newspapers were taxed 50 cents each? Oh, well that’s easy, you don’t tax the people who buy the newspaper, you tax the newspaper. Remember, corporations pay taxes, right? They don’t pass on the expense of taxes to their customers, right?
You are right about one thing though, this is garbage…..
I like paper. Plus, if you carry’m to West Virginia when you are done with with’m, you can sell’m at a flea market as suit cases.
Seriously, if anyone wants some cloth shopping bags, we got’m. You can’t go to a technology conference without getting a bag and my wife and have gone to several every year for more than a decade. We have’m for groceries in both cars with and still have plenty.
#5 Suzie spreads yet another myth without checking it out. Wind turbines kill virtually no birds compared to cats, electric power lines, windows pesticides, cars, and communications towers. Each of those kills either tens or hundreds of millions versus tens of thousands for turbines.
We use the cloth bags and it only takes 5-6 of them to hold $150-$200 worth of groceries.
As said, they hold more, they’re stronger, and it makes for less trips carrying them from the cart to the car, and to the house from the car.
Occasionally we forget to use them but we recycle the plastic ones we do get.
I’m for either a tax on plastic bags or an outright ban. I can adjust either way. Laziness and ease of convenience seem the only reason people want to hold onto plastic.
@#6 & #7
I couldn’t agree more. I do have the problem of forgetting to take the bags with me, but I just need to develop a system of keeping them in the car rather than in my house.
I always wondered though, when you take them back to the store, how does the person at the register know you brought it with you, as opposed to it being one you just picked up? At least at Walmart, they have them in the aisles as well as at the checkout.
I don’t care as long as it serves the purpose. If a better than plastic alternative is there, let’s o it. Paper is just fine with me.
Did everyone see this? “Mr. Constitution” Bob H is advocating an unconstitutional tax on newspapers. Moreover, he’s not advocating changing the First Amendment to accomplish it (that is exactly what would be required); Bob didn’t mention changing the constitution at all; he wants to initiate a flatly unconstitutional tax.
Or perhaps it’s only the Second Amendment he feels so strongly about. I guess that would make him a “pick and choose” patriot,
If you have a problem with the First Amendment Bob, you should be trashing its authors – not newspapers.
12 – what?
How is it unconstitutional?
Having a locality place a tax on a newspaper is NOT federal infringement of free speech, no matter how you slice it.
You are free to say what you wish, without fear of censorship. That’s NOT unconstitutional, irrespective of whether it would eb good for business.
BobH 9
“If DC has reduced its consumption of plastic bags 86% (and, BTW, how do you know that a portion of the decline isn’t from people shopping elswhere to avoid the tax-like they do on cigarettes all the time)”
As a former smoker, I can say I can not recall EVER getting a bag with my carton of cigarettes. Nor with a pack.
12, 16…in fact, if I am not mistaken, people and/or the RT ALREADY pay taxes on the newspaper…increasing it by 50 cents, or a dollar, is NOT un-Constitutional.
Thanks Hoo,
Dan doesn’t have an understanding that the taxes I am referring to have nothing to do with free speach. Besides, I said don’t tax the newspapers, tax the corporations that own the newspapers. It hasn’t a thing to do with the consitution at all. It has to do with ROANOKE CITY levying a tax of 50 cents on EVERY NEWSPAPER they print (might as well get them all, even the ones that don’t sell) to pay for the high cost of having the city workers having to pick them up as litter. What the heck, the city could also divert some of the taxes to fund education, Dan is all for that idea!
The paper doesn’t HAVE to pass on that tax to their customers. If they do so, that is their choice.
You see Dan, it hasn’t a thing to do with free speach because it is not at all about what is printed INSIDE the newspaper. It has to do with the litter that the newspaper generates. There is all kind of precedence for this kind of thing Dan. Ever heard of an excise tax on tires?
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080603073636AARyCAO
Probably way over your head though. What’s the matter Dan, you seem a little defensive in crying “free speach infringement” when it is your ox (the paper) that is being gored…..
I just keep them in my trunk. And Mike Scott is right, I get them in the mail and at conferences, our vacation rental place gave us some. I have bags to spare.
That’s probably because they’ve banned them already from the Outer Banks.
89Hoo,
The newspaper is subject to sales tax in Virginia. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that daily newspapers may be subject to sales tax, if other media are similarly taxed — weeky newspapers, magazines, newletters, etc.
But you can’t increase it for newspaper and NOT increase it for anything else. The SC has clearly ruled that violated the First Amendment.
And you can’t create a special tax for newspapers alone. That violates 1A, too.
It makes just about as much sense as making a special tax on meals to pay for education. This would be a litter tax Dan, and should be as constitutionally justified as any tax on plastic bags would be.
Why should a specific type BUSINESS be exempt just because it has newsprint on its litter?
Ok, so the city passes the 50 cent tax on all the newspapers within the city. I can live with that! It’s fait, it would be on all the newspapars within the city.
Bob, why do you keep saying I’m saying this is about free speech. This is about freedom of the press. That is a distinctly enumerated freedom, in the 1stA, that is quite separate from freedom of speech.
I get that you do not like that print media are the ONLY business singled out for specific protection by the constitution (unlike tires, and plastic bags, for example). If you believe that’s unfair, your argument isn’t with me. It’s with the founders.
I’m with Dan, try it and see how well that goes over if you believe in it. I like a good comedy.
Hi Dan
If people just recycled the bags we would not have this problem. Trex Co. Inc. in Winchester uses the recycled bags to make their deck boards. The Winchester based factory employs 250 people with good paying jobs. If we ban the bags or tax them so no one uses them we could add to the already dismal unemployment rate.
My guess is, if Trex didn’t have donated bags, they’d find some other source for their materials. And if Trex is made with donated material, how the heck is it so expensive?
The constutional restrictions on taxation of printed news material were put in place because the founding fathers wanted to ensure that subsequent governments didn’t seize on taxation as a way to drive a critical press out of business, thereby silencing them.
Trex is expensive, but it’s good stuff. Quality stuff.
# 23
FWIIW, I oppose a tax on newspapers.
However, arms are distinctly enumerated in 2A and they are taxed. So, if being distinctly enumerated in the BoR is a bar to taxation, you may have IDed an unconstitutional practice.
Dave H
That is not even a reasonable comparison. The language in the first says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of … the press;” Imposing taxes specifically on the press would ‘abridge the freedom of the press’, by improperly impacting and attacking the press in its function. A Sales tax on all items, which includes the price of a newspaper is not an infringement, because the paper could always be given away for free and still accomplish its goals of keeping the government in check.
Whereas the second says “… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Nothing about buying them, just ‘keeping’ them.
A large and significant textual difference.
The BoR is not a “bar to taxation” and your implying that it is is dishonest.
More complete texts:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;…”
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
I think Bob H got his hat handed to him on this one.
That plus his silly argument that taxes = debts.
From the TREX website:
“Trex composite products are made of a unique combination of wood and plastic fibers. Trex gets its plastic and wood fibers from reclaimed or recycled resources, including sawdust and used pallets from woodworking operations, and recycled plastic grocery bags from all over the country. Our resources are closely screened for high quality standards before they go near a Trex plant.”
Certainly the recycled plastic grocery bags are part of the mix but not the sole ingredient. The problem is not the ones tht get recycled, it’s the ones that don’t. Many places don’t have recycling programs and thus many bags wind up in landfills or just blowing around all over the place.
#5 Suzie spreads yet another myth without checking it out. Wind turbines kill virtually no birds
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-04-windmills-usat_x.htm
“Wind turbines taking toll on birds of prey”
And get a load of this. The environment kooks are actually suing the windmill makers, forcing them to enact tougher measures to protect birds. Can you believe it? The same kooks who demanded this windmill nonsense are now suing over a problem THEY caused.
When are people going to learn? You can never please far-left kooks because they’re dishonest about their goals. The solution is to defeat these bastards.
# 30
“The BoR is not a “bar to taxation” and your implying that it is is dishonest.”
———-
I agree, absolutely.
It’s not “my point.” I didn’t raise that point. Others did — re: the press.
FWIIW, there is not much difference between “abridged” and “infringed”, IMHO.
http://tinyurl.com/4ofuxym “Definition of ABRIDGE transitive verb
1 a archaic : deprive
b : to reduce in scope : diminish ”
http://tinyurl.com/4c64yen “Definition of INFRINGE
transitive verb
1: to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another
2 obsolete : defeat, frustrate”
I’m not proposing that papers be taxed.
I was just pointing out that those who think the BoR is a bar to taxes are off base, IMHO.
OTOH, if they are right, the Constitutionality of the existing federal tax on keeping an automatic firearm would be highly questionable.
Outside the area of taxation consider other treatment of the press the same as 2A.
For the record, I’m on the side of “There should be no prior restraints on ANY constitutional Right — including the RKBA and to defend yourself with a firearm. NO constitutionally protected rights should even require a permit or license or training or proficiency test to exercise.”
I do agree that training should be encouraged.
Apply all these pro-permit or license or pro-required-training or pro-required-proficiency test to any other constitutionally protected rights and it becomes clear why they should not fly.
A government-issued permit or license or a government designed-required-training or government designed-required-proficiency-test to exercise religion? Yeah, Right!!
A government-issued permit or license or a government designed-required-training or government designed-required-proficiency test to exercise the right of (free???) speech? Yeah, Right!!
A government-issued permit or license or a government designed-required-training or government designed-required-proficiency test to exercise the right of a (free???) press? Yeah, Right!!
A government-issued permit or license or a government designed-required-training or government designed-required-proficiency test before you can assemble, or petition the Government for a redress of grievances? Yeah, Right!!
What part of “shall not be infringed” don’t you understand?
DaveH
I do not think we disagree on those points. I merely was attacking your one point about taxes. There is no barrier to taxing or delaying the purchase process since the 2nd is about keeping and possessing, not buying.
The 2nd is being tinkered with almost every time rules about guns are put into place. Usually in ways I disagree with.
I agree with restrictions on certain classes of people like the clinically or criminally insane, violent felons, children under 12, etc BUT I know that they are infringements on the 2nd and thus illegal. Call it a cognitive dissonance. I know it is not what the founders intended, but I am willing to accept it for the greater good. While I am usually a pretty strict on tieing my understanding to the understanding of the founders and their intent, I recognize there are some very limited common sense restrictions which are beneficial.
By the way, go buy your extended mags everyone, the anti-’s are about to try to put another 10 round rule into place.
Right Dan, You win.
So all plastic bag manufactuers have to do now is throw a little newsprint on their bags and they can’t be taxed because of freedom of the press. There is more than 1 way to skin a cat.
Oh, and instead of taxing the newspapers, just tax the purchasers of the newspapers. 50 cents per copy. That will work too. I am sure it would have absolutely no effect on sales Dan. People woudl understand thatit is going to the city and not to the newspaper.
Or Roanoke City can pass a tax on all businesses who print newspapers that operate within its boundaries.
There you go.
I just wish the cons would come right out and admit what their problem is with plastic bags. Typically, recycling is a liberal plank and, in in so being, conservatives are against it. It’s as simple as that. Doesn’t have a thing to do with common sense or taxes or the right thing to do. It’s just standard knee-jerk opposition to a liberal position. Liberals say yes, recycling is a good idea. Conservatives reflexively say no, it isn’t.
That bird killing link is 6 years old.
You can type in “wind turbines kill birds” into Google and that link comes up, though most every other link that pops up is for articles stating that is a myth.
And if you type in “wind turbines don’t kill birds” into Google you get many more links showing that they don’t, and those links are quite more current than 6 years old.
#33 Nice 6-year-old story, toots. Wind turbines HAVE been improved since then and now kill fewer birds. But it sounds like troll preferred the bird slaughter.
BTW, your comment on the rise in the price of corn? You sort of forgot to mention the effect of the increase in world population and the fact that more people are eating meat. This has caused virtually all grains to rise in price. Even quinoa (actually a pseudocereal), which has been going through the roof yet isn’t used in gasoline at all.
You lose yet again.
I think AF nailed it.
“So all plastic bag manufactuers have to do now is throw a little newsprint on their bags and they can’t be taxed because of freedom of the press. There is more than 1 way to skin a cat.”
Unlike BobH.
# 35
“the 2nd is about keeping and possessing, not buying.”
———-
Sounds like a stretch, to me. A chilling effect on a precursor to any Constitutional Right???
We’ll see what the courts have to say about it, if it ever gets there.
However, any tax that has a chilling effect by targeting the full exercise of any Constitutional Right is / would be suspect, IMHO. In fact any situation where any speech or any conduct is suppressed is suspect — unless that speech or conduct (in and of itself) is in violation of the law (statutory provisions or Common Law).
DaveH
Of course it is a stretch. It’s lawyer-ese.
I would suggest that taxing gunsales is no more chilling than taxing any other item and while again I freely admit that it could be looked upon as a violation of the second, I support some very limited common sense gun regulations.
I am glad that they are suspect, every possible imfringement should be thoroughly considered. That is how we limit the government’s involvement in our lives.