What is plastic, mostly of short-term use, and a menace to
environmental stewardship? If you guessed plastic bags then you’re absolutely
correct!
In an effort to curtail the number of plastic bags used by
Virginians every year, Del. Joe Morrissey (Highland Springs) proposed a nickel
tax on plastic bags to raise money for Virginia’s Water Quality Improvement
Fund.[1]
The fund has been a significant source of money for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup.
If the proposal is passed in the General Assembly, plastic
bags throughout Virginia’s grocery, convenience, and drugstores would cost
customers 5 cents beginning in July, 2014.[2]
Some bags would be exempt though: bags used for meat, leftover restaurant food,
fish, poultry, ice creams, dry cleaning, newspapers, and prescription drugs.
The tax has been in place for 3 years in Washington, D.C.
and its creator, D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells, has stated that the program has
reduced the number of plastic bags in the Anacostia River by 60 percent (is
this the only measure of success?).
In typical Virginia fashion, the proposal will be resisted largely
on economic grounds. According to Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity, “If
you’re a small business, you’ve got to administer the tax, you’ve got to report
it, you’ve got to remit it…I think we should bag the bag tax.” Cute!
While Herrity brings up a valid point about the costs to
small businesses, “bagging the bag tax” would be the equivalent to turning away
from the low hanging fruit of environmental stewardship. In other words,
implementing a five cents plastic bag tax should be a simply way of reducing
environmental degradation.
Instead of imposing the plastic bag tax on large and small
businesses alike, why not impose the plastic bag tax on big businesses alone? Or
how about allowing small businesses to keep a larger portion of the plastic bag
tax to cover the costs of the expenses incurred? Why aren’t there different plastic
bag tax proposals being ‘thrown around’?
Implementing the plastic bag tax is a no-brain solution to
reducing environmental degradation. This is probably why so many Republicans
are opposed to it.
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