Bob Dylan famously wrote “the answer is blowin’ in the wind;” look up these days and you are more likely to see plastic bags blowing by.
Or floating by if you are on the Anacostia River or the Chesapeake Bay. Or washing in on a wave at Rehoboth. Or mucking up your drawers and closets.
We are awash in plastic packaging. My desk is adorned at this moment by a balled-up white plastic bag. I have nearly severed fingers cutting through plastic packaging on toys and gadgets. Don’t even start me on Styrofoam.
But the answer to our plastic bag glut, according to D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells, would be charging 5 cents for each bag used at a grocery or drugstore.
Much as I admire Wells’ anti-trash crusade, this one belongs in the can.
“Source reduction is the most effective way to reduce trash,” Wells tells me. “When you buy a cold soda and want to drink it right away, why put it in a plastic bag?”
Good question. But charging for the bag is the wrong answer, in my humble opinion.
Wells and other environmentalists believe consumers will start to bring reusable, cloth bags to the store. Many at my Safeway on Connecticut Avenue already are using them. Wells also hopes stores will put groceries in recycled cardboard boxes. Costco already stacks goods in boxes.
Here’s what I believe will happen: Rich folks and kids with loose change will fork over the 5 cents. Families who shop once a week and fill their carts with $100 of groceries will not bring 10 cloth bags to the counter. Poor folks who have a hard time scratching up cash for macaroni and getting organized to shop will pay the price.
Wells and the eight other council members who signed onto his bill have plenty of support from the green corps. San Francisco has banned plastic bags, and the city reports that 75 million fewer bags showed up in the waste stream. Ireland instituted a 19-cent fee on bags, and usage dropped 90 percent, according to environmentalists. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to charge 6 cents a bag; Los Angeles City Council has voted to ban bags in July 2010.
Why not flip the equation? Why not pay people a nickel for each bag they recycle? Why would that not achieve Wells’ goal of cutting usage and also encourage people to pick up trash? A twofer!
Wells tells me Giant Food already pays for bags. Bring bags to Giant and the store will credit you 5 cents each or trade used bags for clean ones.
“That works well,” he says, “but it’s still best to stop source point production.” As in make fewer bags.
Seems to me paying for bags would do both. D.C. could pioneer the plan, leapfrog Bloomberg in New York and beat San Francisco to recycling heaven.
Then all of us could get back to looking for answers in the wind rather than watching bags drift by.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at [email protected].
