Reusable bags get a leg up in D.C. [Updated!]

The local government of Washington D.C. has levied a tax of 5 cents per plastic bag for supermarket customers. This means that there is a small but direct financial incentive to use resumable bags. Nice!

I’ve been trying hard for the past few years to minimize the number of plastic bags I use. I have cloth bags for groceries and will decline a bag entirely if I’m buying only a few items. (Side note : why does every Walgreens employee think I need a bag to hold one tube of toothpaste and one stick of deodorant?!)

I’m sure there will be haters of this new policy who can’t be bothered by the perceived inconvenience of supplying your own bags, but I suspect in a few months we’ll all adapt and be better off for it.

I guess this is one of those perks in living in a very small independent city-state hybrid like the District of Colombia. We get to pass laws that would likely not pass a larger state legislature. Go local government!

(Then again, the District doesn’t get any representation in the U.S. Senate. So that’s a bummer.)

Update!
I just went to the local grocery store and discovered they’re giving away reusable bags for free this week to help their customers adopt. Three cheers to Giant for doing the right thing!

Filed under Washington DC, environment, politics : Comments (5) : Jan 4th, 2010 by tadfad

5 Responses to “Reusable bags get a leg up in D.C. [Updated!]”

  1. Dillon Says:
    January 4th, 2010 at 22:00

    So if you’re buying three things, do you juggle on your way out the door?

  2. tadfad Says:
    January 5th, 2010 at 13:48

    Dillon – I do. Typically with 4 items. Blindfolded.

  3. devin Says:
    January 20th, 2010 at 21:40

    In lots of European countries they’ve been charging people for plastic grocery bags for a while now. Kowalski’s near us gives you 5 cents off if you bring your own bag, but apparently DC has caught on that negative reinforcement works better than positive reinforcement when it comes to the environment.

  4. tadfad Says:
    January 22nd, 2010 at 20:50

    I think the tax makes sense because they’re using some part of it ($0.03 I believe) to fund cleaning up the waterways that have become clogged with plastic bags and other trash.

    A few years back I worked at a park in SE Washington and saw first hand how bad it can get. The bags formed trash-dams at bends in the river. Bad stuff.

  5. tadfad » Blog Archive » Is the bag tax working? Says:
    April 1st, 2010 at 17:30

    [...] wrote about the new tax back in January as it was just going into [...]

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