The Dirt

The Washington Post reports that the District of Columbia issued a new five cent fee for every paper and plastic bag used in a food or liquor store. The new fees went into effect on New Year’s Day. Local lawmakers hope that the fees will raise $3.6 million for the cleanup of the Anacostia River and encourage more sustainable shopping habits. However, The Washington Post notes that revenues earned from the tax are expected to decline as more D.C. residents become aware of the tax. The District has promoted the program using the campaign “Skip the Bag, Save the River,” and has sent stores logos and stickers. 

A few major grocery stores were initially opposed to the bill, including Giant Food, writes The Washington Post. However, Giant have since gotten on board, “handing out free reusable bags at all seven of its D.C. locations. Stores will distribute some 250,000 bags this week. Other stores, such as CVS and Safeway, also gave away free bags.”

A small fraction of the billions of petroleum-based plastic bags used in the U.S. each year are recycled. Many of these plastic bags end up in D.C.’s stormwater management system, including the heavily polluted Anacostia River. Bags clog up drains, get tangled in tree branches, and create floating trash islands in the middle of the river, adding cost to the environmental clean-up. “The D.C. Department of the Environment found in a recent study that 47 percent of the trash in the Anacostia’s tributaries and 21 percent in the river itself is plastic bags.”

Plastic bags also adversely impact ocean wildlife — whales, seals, and sea birds ingest plastic bags, mistaking them for jellyfish. There are also multi-million square-mile garbage patches in the middle of the world’s major oceans.

A number of similar proposals for taxing plastic have failed elsewhere in the U.S. Seattle’s plan to create a 20-cent tax recently failed to pass.  USA Today adds Colorado’s state legislature rejected a bill that would have added six cents for each plastic bag used. In New York City, Mayor Mike Bloomberg proposed a five-cent per bag fee but lost to heavy opposition. While U.S. states are also moving forward — officials in Maryland and Virginia will introduce similar anti-bag measures this year, there has been no serious discussion of a federal, country-wide tax on plastic bags.

Some areas are going further and banning plastic bags outright. San Francisco recently banned the sale of plastic bags, pushing customers to paper or canvas. TreeHugger writes: “San Francisco, in 2008, banned the use of plastic bags in the city and ordered them to be replaced with more eco-friendly materials–like paper–though reusable canvas bags are gaining in popularity.” 

Meanwhile, last year, China announced a country-wide ban on plastic bags, joining South Africa, Ireland, Uganda, and Russia. TreeHugger cites a report by China Trade News, which estimates the amount of oil this will save: “[there are] estimates that the country of 1.3 billion people must refine five million tons, or 37 million barrels, of crude oil every year to meet demand for plastic bags, which are used at a rate of three billion bags every day.”

Read the article and learn more about DC’s “Skip a Bag, Save the River” program.