City To Impose Shopping Bag Fee | God's World News

City To Impose Shopping Bag Fee

07/05/2016
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    A New Yorker carries her groceries home in handy plastic bags. (AP)
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    New York City Mayor de Blasio talks about reusable water bottles and grocery bags on Earth Day, 2015. (AP)
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    Plastic bags are recycled in a California facility. (AP)
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    A clerk loads a customer’s groceries into reusable cloth bags in Seattle, Washington. (AP)
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    Heavy rolls of thin plastic, ready to be turned into handy grocery bags (AP)
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Every day, thousands of New Yorker shoppers accept their goods in disposable plastic bags. The city's sanitation department estimates 10 billion bags a year go into the trash. Now city officials want to place a five-cent charge on those bags.

The City Council approved a bill requiring most merchants to charge at least a nickel for each bag, including paper ones. Technically, the fee isn't a tax. Taxes require a public vote. A bill does not. According to this bill, stores will keep the money they collect.

The law goes into effect October 1 if, as expected, Mayor Bill de Blasio signs it. He has a goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2030.

Supporters hope the charge will force New Yorkers to bring along their own shopping bags. That, they say, might reduce the number of bags in landfills and littering public spaces.

New Yorkers interviewed as they ran errands shared differing opinions. In the city, most people shop by foot instead of car. Businessman Pat Tomasso is among the skeptical ones. “A lot of times . . . I don’t have time to have a bag with me,” he says. But Todd Killinger supports the fee. He believes people will adapt in time.

If the law passes, New York City will join more than 150 other municipalities around the country that have banned single-use plastic bags or imposed fees for them.

Opponents say the city is overstepping its bounds. They say businesses should be free to offer the bags or not—and choose how much, if anything, to charge. Customers should be free to choose whether to bring their bags or use those provided by stores they frequent.

"I'm tired of my constituents being nickeled-and-dimed," says Councilman Steven Matteo, a Staten Island Republican. He voted against the fee. "It's going to give my constituents another reason to shop in New Jersey."

A group called “Stop the Bag Ban” claims that bans and fees on bags harm the poor, who have limited budgets for food anyway. Keeping bags with them is a burden for those people who buy groceries in small, frequent bursts. The group also says there’s no solid evidence that the plastic bags are as environmentally problematic as people have been led to believe. Reusable bags have their own cost in materials and maintenance. The group asserts that the popularity of living “a green lifestyle” has swayed public opinion to unfairly demonize the convenient option.