Poll: A New Tax for Plastic Supermarket Bags May Be in Your Future
A New Jersey Senate Committee voted this week to approve a new 5-cent fee for plastic supermarket bags which will go to fund environmental cleanup.
A new Senate bill could have you paying more for plastic bags at the grocery store.
The Carryout Bag Reduction and Recycling Act was approved by a 4-0 vote of the Senate Environmental Energy Committee on Monday that would require stores to charge a 5-cent fee per plastic food bag at the checkout aisle beginning in 2014.
On the other hand, the bill would also give a 5-cent rebate or credit for every reusable bag provided by a shopper. In addition, the bill would require stores to only offer recyclable carryout bags by 2015.
The bill will soon be taken up in the Assembly, according to NJ.com.
The 5-cent fee would go toward the Department of Environmental Protection’s Barnegat Bay Restoration Fund, which works to improve the water quality of polluted Barnegat Bay.
The bill was first introduced in 2008.
Innumerable other states and towns have passed laws in recent years to curb the use of plastic bags, which are infamous for polluting waterways and beaches.
So what do you think, Bloomfield? Would you complain if you had to pay 5 cents for every plastic bag at the grocery store if you knew it was going to a good cause? Vote in the Patch poll below!
jfc
12:24 pm on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Go back to paper bags. The can be recycled and DO break down just like those brown leaf bags filled with leaves every fall.
Douglas Lober
4:14 pm on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
I agree that a $ .05 cent tax is a smart decision. When you look at how long a plastic bag takes to degrade and how much polution they add to our streets, rivers, and oceans then an only $ .05 cents tax is not much at all. A better bet would be to just ban them completely and go 100% with reusable bags. thanks for the great read today! http://www.reusethisbag.com
Mimi Michalski
4:14 pm on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
I think the tax on each bag/rebate for each reusable bag idea would be way too complicated to enforce at the checkout counter. The clerks have enough to do with scanning all your items and coupons and checking you out without having to count your bags. In addition, I use all of my plastic bags to pick up our dogs' poop and if I started using reusable bags for my groceries I'd have to buy plastic bags for the dogs' use, which kind of cancels out the savings to the environment of not using plastic bags for groceries.. I support cleaning up pollution in the bay but would rather be taxed in another way to pay for that.
Mimi Michalski
4:14 pm on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
In addition, our store, Stop-n-Shop, has more and more self-checkout counters. How would the tax on plastic bags be enforced there?