Double-bag to your heart’s content, Virginia. Or — why stop at double? Triple bag, quadruple, take them all! Because for at least one more year, Virginians need not worry about the apparently quite onerous grocery store bag tax inflicted upon granola-munching meccas such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and — ahem — Washington, D.C.
With a strong push from plastics lobbyists, the Virginia House of Delegates has defeated the 5-cent tax per plastic bag put forth earlier this session by Del. Joseph Morrissey, D-Henrico. Revenue from the tax would’ve gone to environmental measures such as cleaning the Chesapeake Bay and its watersheds.
Morrissey doesn’t look likely to give up, though: “It might be dead this year, but I’ll be back like a virus,” he said.
A similar bill is currently working its way through Maryland’s state legislature. In D.C., a recent audit found that the city collected about $2 million for river cleanup from its new 5-cent plastic bag tax. An environmental group that tracks the cleanliness of the Anacostia River reported that bag waste in the river is down by about two-thirds.
