Will/Should Decatur Ban or Tax Plastic Bags?
Decatur Metro | October 22, 2010Decatur Environmental Sustainability Board member KC Boyce wrote on Twitter this morning…
Should #DecaturGA ban or tax plastic bags and/or disposable take-out containers?
Looking back at the latest uploaded minutes from the Sustainability Board meeting in August, it seems like at least the tax is a serious consideration.
Presentation on options for a plastic bag tax: Jill presented an overview on some statistics and pros and cons of plastic bag ban or “tax.” The board is interested in pursuing this but wants to better understand the impacts and options and pros and cons specific to the City and businesses, especially in light of conflicting information found in various news sources.
ACTION: Committee will continue research and will come back to the board to share.
Latest from Decaturish
Plastic bags- Hell yes
Takeout containers- All? Need more info. You’re not supposed to recycle things with excessive food stuff on it, so I guess I could see where they’re going with that.
Can’t stand that Chick-fil-A and Dunkin are using styrofoam. Get with it guys. It can be recycled but much more difficult to do.
Unfortunately, sometimes a little financial incentive is required to get some people motivated.
It drives me nuts that the Chick-fil-A uses styrofoam. It’s one of the last places I go with any regularity that does.
Me too!
That has always been a major gaffe on Chick-Fil-A’s part. They do a lot of other things right.
Tax the heck out of styrofoam cups please!
When plastic bags are outlawed only outlaws will have plastic bags.
Howz about getting business to just stop offering bags ….. I think most of us a smart and tuned in enough to get that message.
Do we really need more laws and or taxes?
Does that mean we also get enforcement and penalties for non compliance ??? where does it end?
Trickle down being what it is, it will come out of everyones pocket ie, it will just be added to the cost of doing business
Trips me out to got the hardware store and watch someone by a small item , very packaged already, and then the clerk asks ” Would you like a bag?”
Buy a litre of Coke and put it in a bag …. really?, does that make for easier handling?
Here is an idea, each of us that actually cares about the amount of styro and plastic bags, make sure we don’t use them …. and suggest the same to our friends and neighbors.
I say we do not need the nanny state handling this for us as well, lets let them focus on more important issues ….. say ……actual governance
If everyone did the right thing, we wouldn’t need emissions standards or the EPA at all for that matter. Unfortunately, that’s not the case
Did you read the minutes of the meeting? They haven’t decided on the issue because of conflicting evidence about whether a ban or tax would be effective. So how is it that you are so certain it will not only be effective but is the “right thing to do?”
You may not have been aware, people are allowed to have OPINIONS even though you do not agree with them.
It’s just my OPINION that the EPA is necessary for a host of reasons, but mostly because by people’s nature, they don’t do always do what is right environmentally.
I attempted to garner support of my OPINION by arguing that car emissions would remain high and toxic, but for laws governing that. The same with dumping raw sewage into waterways.
Just my OPINION. Have a nice day!!!!
I had planned on letting this drop, but I’m waiting at my on my dogs vet appointment and nothing else to do.
I don’t believe in my post that I said I was “so certain” of anything regarding the bags. I never attempted to introduce any scientic eveidence to the debate. You did this with one of my other posts a while back. It’s fine to have an opinion, but when you twist others peoples words to make your point, well, that’s just not right.
That’s just my opinion also.
No one said you can’t have an OPINION, which I assume is the same thing as an opinion. I was asking why you seem so sure you are right when the committe punted on this for now to gather more evidence. I twisted nothing. You said “hell yes!” to a proposal to ban or tax these bags, then suggested that such coercion is necessary to get others to “do the right thing.” Is there anything uncertain about the “hell yes!”?
This was a simple question for you. You are free to refuse to answer it, which you obviously have done. But skip the lecture, especially the all caps. No one cares.
Also like how you assume I am against the proposal, when I’ve said nothing about it. I, like the committee, don’t know enough to support it or oppose it.
It seems there is no rational discussion with you. There is only your “opinion” followed by an overly emotional reaction to a mere question about why you seem so sure it is right. Incidentally, your reactionary, defensive, and condescending response is a de facto admission that you can’t type a single sentence in support of the view you claim to hold.
Thanks!
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
It wouldn’t bother me personally. However, my only concern is that it will drive business out of the city since we are only four square miles, making it very easy to shop where there is no tax. Things are tough enough on our businesses right now.
Maybe that’s not a problem and quite possibly the environmental gains are worth it, but it’s something to consider.
At first, I thought this was a joke. Then I realized it was a joke, but of a completely different kind.
No tax, no ban . . . give me a break.
As I suggested on Twitter, how about instead rewarding those that do use the bags – a system already in place at Target, CVS, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s. Get people excited and do something positive instead. Maybe?
How about encouraging shops to incentivize consumers who use reusable bags, like Target’s 10c refund per bag. Restaurants would help by offering meals in smaller portion sizes, so we don’t need the “doggy bag” (or overeat).
BIllbor- Both are EXCELLENT suggestions! :0)
No, don’t ban plastic bags. We reuse them.
But maybe consider banning drive-thrus?
Cars idling isn’t good for pollution. And really, how hard is it to walk inside (as long as a baby is not asleep in the back seat.)
“But maybe consider banning drive-thrus?”
[insert personal attack here]
I could get behind a ban on drive-throughs. There doesn’t seem to be much hard data compiled yet, but common sense suggests that vehicles idling in medium-long lines produce more air pollution and consume more gas than if they parked and then re-started. And I often notice medium-long lines in a drive-through lane when the parking lot has plenty of empty spaces.
I used to live in Washington, DC where they recently imposed a $0.05 plastic bag tax. People were generally in favor of the measure before it was passed. Then when it went into effect, wow you should have heard the complaining. Everyone whined and moaned about it. For months and months. People got mad in stores. Yelled at clerks. Griped to colleagues at the water cooler. I witnessed/endured this all many times.
But I’ll tell you, it irritated people enough that they changed their habits. People started bringing their own reusable shopping bags. Or they declined to pay the $0.05 fee per bag and just carried their purchases with their own two hands.
I understand the comments here about not wanting more government regulation. But in practice, simply “getting business to just stop offering bags” doesn’t just happen. No one (consumers and businesses alike) wants to deal with the hassle of this change without some sort of force behind the mandate. As evidence — why hasn’t it happened yet?
For my two cents, I think that getting rid of plastic bags (and styrofoam take out for that matter) is a good idea. But practically speaking, it’s not going to happen without a government mandate to make it so.
Interesting story. It seems analagous to the story in those states that have a mandatory glass bottle refund. You don’t see any bottles lying around. Ditto for gas shortages and price hikes and commuting behavior. It seems to either take a little pain or a lot of benefit to change ingrained human behavior.
I believe the stores should deside – Aldi’s is a good example.
Yes indeedy. Folks change when it’s to their benefit to change- not just because it’s a good thing to do. Prime example: Waste Collection Day along Sycamore Drive. HUGE contrast in curbside recycling participation depending on whether the house is in the City of Decatur or the Dekalb zone.
( It IS ingrained behavior! I never forget to take my bags into Aldi, but can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to go back to the car for my bags at Kroger! (Funny, I can always remember to smuggle them into YDFM!)
Do it — but charge the stores that put one little tiny item each in 7 bags — and double bag the soup — the tax!
Since we all know where all the plastic bags are wasted (hint: just east of the city limits), probably the only way to get them to stop!
double bags, I mean
I’m all for it! I already use my own bags. It took a while to get used to but is now ingrained. On the rare occasions that I forget, I wouldn’t mind paying a small fee for that bag.
Not all of these bags are actually plastic. One of the shops I used to frequent in the UK had something that looked and felt just like plastic but was made from rice…
i believe there is a documentary called “bag it…is your life too plastic?” about how crappy plastic bags are for our world. i think you can check out the trailer on youtube.
I just watched the trailer! So, apparently the film maker’s home town challenged another town to see who could reduce plastic use the most. That’s what we need. A good ol’ challenge with another city like Decatur.
I challenge our friendly neighbours over in Candler McAfee!
the school system uses styrofoam trays and plastic utensils will they get taxed?
Sigh….
I used to live in Chattanooga. There, all the grocery bags were blue – then used for recycling pick up. (Instead of then buying blue bags for recycling.) I never understood why Atlanta doesn’t do that too – it made SO much sense! e
I’d like to ban or tax out of scale eyesore houses on a certain residential street in Oakhurst.
Ha!
It’s not that much more for business to use biodegradable to-go containers that break down in a matter of months instead of never. In Europe, you better have your bag or you have to buy another reusable bag. Period. A lot of restaurants, like u-joint charge a .50 fee for to gos to cover the cost. I would pay it.
But what will we use to pick up the dog ppop?
I use lunch bags & newspaper. It’s cheap & it’s green. Kroger sells them for $1.85 for 100. Of course you’ll never want to “brown bag” lunch again! :0)
Great idea!
Thanks! It was “go green” or risk having a landfill named after my dog!
(The bags & newspaper are from recycled paper.)
Another poop option? Turn it into energy. The dogs of Decatur could run this town!
http://www.cesarsway.com/news/dognews/Powerful-Dog-Poop?utm_source=mobilestorm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Oct10NL_4A
BAN THEM,BAN THEM ….
Thank goodness!
I won’t have to buy any more of those green, yellow, or blue plastic bags. The garbage trucks can then run up and down our streets twice. Once to pick up our trash and then again to return the hemp trash bag. Brilliant!
I’m for it, tax the everliving daylight out of those colored plastic bags.
Overall, a great idea.
Hemp is actually a really wonderful product with so many uses. It’s silly that you can use hemp products in the US, but are not allowed to commercially cultivate it. More irrational fear, than actual logic behind it
Exactly! That’s why I used it as an illustration.
I’m right there with ya on that
Is this really a big problem? Talk about micro managing. A “sustainability board”? Why don’t we just close down all the resturants on the Square, they really aren’t necessary. Think of all the energy, etc. we could save.
At least close the Brick Store, which has a separate bar devoted to serving beer imported from Belgium! It is truly shocking — they brew the stuff across the Atlantic, and then ship it here, so relatively wealthy people can buy it for $5 per glass. The energy wasted is enormous. And it is a pure luxury good. We have beer brewed right here in Georgia. Everyone should just drink that. Or at least tax the Belgian beer. I propose $5 in tax per pint.
This presentation on the dangers of plastic bags has been around a few years, but always makes interesting reading:
http://lee.ifas.ufl.edu/fyn/fynpubs/thedangersofplasticbags.pdf
tax for plastic bags on both ends is a bit much, in my opinion.
Flacka- I am quite certain that any plastic bags consumed in Decatur Ga. will not end up around the neck of a sea turtle. I sure if you extrapolate the numbers for the production and shipping of beer, you could make a better case to ban beer – for environmental protection reasons.
Look, I could care less about plastic bags, I always ask for paper, and my wife uses those reusable bags.
Decaturites should mind there own business and stop pushing for a nanny state.
Quite certain? Why is that? I don’t get it.
And I’d imagine the reasoning for taxing plastic bags is because there are viable alternatives. When you ban beer the only alternative is good ol’ fashion moonshine.
Oh, and Left Wing…can I start calling foul on use of the term “nanny state” as you do on “sustainable”?
No.
Good point.
sustainable is far worse, DM! (smile)
And I’d imagine the reasoning for taxing plastic bags is because there are viable alternatives. When you ban beer the only alternative is good ol’ fashion moonshine.
__________________________
Who says you need an alternative? If the gummit says no beer, then you have no right to the beer, as some would argue. All that is left is your desire to satisfy your personal preference to drink something other than moonshine. And if threads like this prove anything, it is that most DM posters think your personal preferences mean squat if they conflict with what the “community” views as a greater good.
I swear I am not being snot- just asking a question:
How on earth can a society actually operate if everyone is allowed his personal preference? There has to be standard somewhere, and if the elected representatives of the community (now this is the problem) thoughtfully and intelligently make decisions based on the goal of a common good, which will always step on someone’s toes or preference, then isn’t that the overarching goal of civil society? How else do you propose we operate as a society? You can’t isolate issues like plastic bags and beer and universal healthcare. They are all problems (especially the beer), and they should be solved in a cohesive way.
For example, I really hate the monstrous new houses popping up all over the place. The rooms are too small, the facades are blank acres of cheap concrete siding and there is too much house and not enough quality. I think they ruin neighborhoods. But that’s me and my preference. Can I try to stop this? Yep, but unless most of Decatur and the city council and all the special interests jump on board, I will fail. According to the way our system works, I have the right to try move the community and change the standard. Make sense?
I didn’t suggest the presentation was entirely relevant to Decatur… Perhaps we could replace the sea turtle slide with one of Hooty the Owl ensnared in Kroger bag to make it more local (wishing no ill on Hooty, before anyone complains).
“In my experience”, most of the small independent businesses in Decatur do a good job as far as being environmentally conscious. However, the big chains, such as Kroger, CVS, and Publix don’t, especially when it comes to plastic bags.
I didn’t comment one way or the other on a ban. In my mind, there are four options:
1. Impose a ban
2. Improve public awareness
3. Improve corporate awareness
4. Impose a bag fee (and not 5 cents a bag, but 25cents), with any profits going to some sort of
recycling fund
Of the four, I’d go with number 3 or 4 first, then 1, then 2. The public is way way more environmentally aware than say 10 years ago, but some people just need the nanny state – to explain reason I put option 1 ahead of 2.
DM – simple geography. I can see an oceanside community being concerned, but Decatur? I think this is a weak attempt at feel-good environmentalism.
Do we really want a LOCAL government that can micromanage our lives.
Seriously. That 2nd pint is really unnecessary. And all those beer choices- that is really wasteful; all those different brewerys are redundant. Let’s ban more than 2 taps at any bar. Oh, and let’s only have one bar. Oh, and only use recycled toilet paper. Oh you really use too much at that.
I will gladly strike nanny state from my vocabulary, please let me know what I should call it? Micro-Control Government, perhaps?
A tax or ban on plastic bags — are we really discussing this?!?!
Absolutely not. If people don’t approve of plastic bags, they are under no obligation to use them. It’s that simple. Why should those people force their opinions on the actions of others?
Plus, a business has the right to provide a bag of their choosing to their customers if they wish. Why should the gov’t have any say in what types of bags they use and punish them for using a type of which they don’t approve.
Likewise, customers have a right to use any type of bag they wish.
This idea that behavior modification is a proper function of gov’t is totally outrageous.
“If people don’t approve of plastic bags, they are under no obligation to use them. It’s that simple. Why should those people force their opinions on the actions of others?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patc
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/pollution/trash-vortex/
Maybe the probability of a Decatur plastic bag finding its way to the Pacific is zero, but the point is that this stuff doesn’t just vanish.
Top link should have been:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
Flaka, I read the info at this link and found it very interesting.
I still maintain that it is the responsibility of the individual to act and that we have no right to make our fellow citizens the victims of a gov’t behavior modification/control scheme.
If people have problems with plastic bags, they don’t have to use them. There’s much more they can do — share their opinion with all their neighbors, support efforts to responsibility dispose of them, work to find new technologies to degrade them in landfills, support efforts to find viable alternatives. Practice what they preach and trust that their earnestness will attract those of like mind and sway those who feel differently. People are doing this everyday and making tremendous strides on a host of issues.
I just feel a ban or tax to control other people’s access to plastic bags is wrong and going way too far.
So you have the “right” to use products that sit in public landfills forever, that the earth cannot rid itself of on its own and that create pollution and god only knows what problems for future generations?
Who gave you that right? Why do you have more of a right to destroy the environment through your actions than others have to try to stop you?
Rights are not inherent and they are not natural. They are granted- either through decree or lack thereof- by what is collectively and typically known as government, whether it be tribal, organized, pure democracy, republic or dictatorship. Rights are philosophical constructs, not something you are owed by virtue of being born. That’s why the concept of “rights” is different depending on where and when you live or who you are. You have no “right” to use a plastic bag if the community in which you reside deems plastic bags against community standards. Simple. Laws are written that guarantee your rights in certain circumstances (ie, the state and national codes of laws) but even those are not immutable and are open to repeal, editing, and reinterpretation.
Very interesting. So al these folks claiming that health care is a human right in this country are clearly wrong. It’s not a human right until 51% of the voting population declares it to be so. But then if a future majority takes away the right, it’s not a right anymore. I guess what it boils down to is that the rights of 49% depend on whether the other 51% decide to grant them.
Those founding fathers were rubes! The whole “endowed by their creator” nonsense. Man, Jefferson, Madison, etc — what morons.
So the fact that a group of men who died 200 plus years ago declared a creator endowed them and their various descendants with rights makes it true? Still a construct, not an absolute.
I believe in universal, nationalized health care, having lived under it and having listened to inlaws in 5 countries who have it, but it’s not a right until it’s codified. Believing something is the right thing is not the same as a RIGHT to that thing. Granting of rights, by our system, are left to lawmakers, not a 50.1% majority. That’s why we have lawmakers and a system- we were never meant to be the pure democracy that simple majority implies. The system of checks and balances on which our federal governmental system was founded should assure that.
Typo- granting of rights IS left to…etc.
No, it doesn’t make it true. It just means that some very influential folks who founded this country obviously had a very different view of where certain basic rights come from than you have expressed here. One can disagree, of course, but what I understand you to be saying — that even very basic freedoms do not exist unless and until blessed by a policitcal majority or owrse, yet, are granted by a dictator — is strikingly authoritarian view. By your logic, North Koreans have no inherent right to eat if the “Supreme Leader” decress they should starve.
I don’t want to go that far; I am not sure where the break is. That’s why I am putting this out there as strongly as I – this conversation keeps cropping up and I guess we can argue in circles for days about whose “rights” matter, how we get them and what they mean. Is there any really answer?
Nellie, “Rights” (contrasted by “Priviledges”) are not a “shades of grey” type of discusion. There is not a “that far” to go. Either they are individual, inalienable, and granted by our existence or they are not. Perhaps your (sometimes) political sophistry has turned on you.
“So you have the “right” to use products that sit in public landfills forever, that the earth cannot rid itself of on its own and that create pollution and god only knows what problems for future generations?”
Yes — I do. A better phrasing would be, I have the right to the access to it.
How do we know the earth cannot rid itself of it on its own? The earth has been here much longer than people and survived much more than we ever could. So how do the Johnny come lately humans all of a sudden know of what the earth can and can’t rid itself or what will be on its surface or in its bowels forever?
Honestly, If I felt as strongly as you apparently do about plastic bags, I wouldn’t use them. I also would not try to use government to force my opinions on others.
Rights are natural and inherent. In other words, they are because I am and therefore do not and cannot come from government. Any authority a government has comes from the people. This country is based on that timeless and immutable principle. Seriously, do you have a right to life?
“You have no “right” to use a plastic bag if the community in which you reside deems plastic bags against community standards.”
Do you really believe that? Sixty years ago the “community” deemed it against their “standards” to allow black Americans access to same community provided schools as white Americans. Thankfully the black Americans and many others of the time realized that their right to the access of these schools did not disappear due to community deeming that they disappear.
I don’t feel that strongly about them. I do feel strongly about the tendency of people in this country to claim that have a “right” to everything they want, and I actually arguing this point more strongly for dialogue purposes than principle, to be honest.
How are rights inherent? You have the rights you have because someone has granted them. Everything you are quoting and claiming as truth is again, nothing more than construct. I have a right to my life because we as a culture have decided over the ten thousand years or so that we have to protect that, not because I simply am. But in some places, your actions, judged by particular codified standards, can cause the state to take your life, literally or through life imprisonment. So do you really have the right to life if you aren’t living up to and respecting the government and community standards, ie, breaking the social contract that was at the heart of Enlightenment philosophy (another construct).
Your point about civil rights actually proves what I was saying. Community standards of certain communities were abhorrent to most of the country; the federal government stepped in, granted the right to nonwhites to access certain areas of the community and took away the state’s right to legalized discrimination and therefore that of the individual.
In any case, it state recognition and interpretation of rights that make them true combined with citizenry compliance and acceptance, not simply the fact of your existence.
Most of what I am saying really is rhetorical. But I am disturbed by the tendency of people to jump on the it’s my right bandwagon as if you were born to run around with an unlimited supply, in this case, of plastic bags on your head no matter the impact. We tend to think this about everything that bothers us in this country without ever thinking how complex the concept of rights really is.
Rights, as I speak of them, are inherent or unalienable. How there could be a right to life if there was no life? So life, being life, has the inherent right to be life. There would be no rights if there was no individual to be aware of them.
Likewise, gov’t would not be if not for the people and any authority it has comes from the people. Truly, the only authority it has it to protect the inherent rights of the people.
I agree, no one has the “right” t to anything they want. If I want your car, for example, I don’t have the right to take it. We — society — make laws against me stealing you car because we are protecting your (and our) inherent right to your property.
I have no right to take actions which violate your rights. If I attempt to do so and am imprisoned as a result by society, society hasn’t taken my inherent right to freedom. I forfeited my inherent right to freedom.
If one truly understands inherent rights, he or she will do what they ought to do not necessarily what they want to do.
What you refer to as rights, I would call privileges. Privileges, unlike inherent rights, are granted or transferred.
Sure, I have an inherent right to the access of plastic bags. If we need better methods of disposing of them — we should create those methods. However, poor disposal methods do not supercede the right to the access and use of them by imposing a ban or tax.
BTW, your unlimited supply statement could be a totally different discussion which I would enjoy sharing with you sometime.
Tax and ban are not the only way to control waste.. The point is plastic bags sit in the land fill for ever. People need bags of some description when shopping.
If government wants to regulate laws to protect the environment pass a law that within the city of Decatur all bags and take out containers be made of bio degradable materials that have a life span of less than one year. The additional cost to use bio degradable bags is minimal compared to plastic in the land fill for ever.
Amen
It would be better just to ban them. Too hard to manage such a nit pickey regulation. But what would that accomplish? Every time I follow a thread on this site, I hear people wanting new resturants and businesses to cater to their every whim and taste. I am willing to bet that any independant resturant you name generates more landfill waste in one month than all the plastic bags used in the city of Decatur in a year. Take your pick: Brick Store, TDS, Watershead, etc.
So my conclusion is that Decatur is fine with waste that comes from catering to elitist snobby tastes, but shuns waste of “the common man”.
I recycle all my champagne bottles and caviar tins!
So where do you live again?
So let’s leverage our elite consumption habits towards a more productive end. A culinary/brew fest to raise money for oceanic plastic abatement or a national campain to target the bag manufacturers ( there can’t be that many)- instead of getting comfortable with a local government passing symbolic laws that are hard to implement and enforce and in the end don’t have much of an impact.
’bout a tax or ban on cigarette butts ……?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Nellie and Dem …. Don’t jump the shark, we can work it out.
Hey, I don’t even have a leather jacket or waterskis. No jumping here. Just honestly asking
If a ban on plastic is in the cards I’d rather see, and pay for, a mandate for degradable bags vs. a tax on plastic bags. I’d prefer my money to go a business that employs people to produce the bags rather than the government.