| The Boston City Council is right to address the problem of plastic bag pollution. The bags are cheap to manufacture, but it costs the rest of us a huge amount to clean them up -- not to mention the cost of having to look at them in bushes and trees across the state. The Massachusetts Food Association, which represents the state's supermarket chains, and the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, which represents 3,000 pharmacies, convenience stores, and independent grocers, have found a neat way to force us to subsidize their businesses.
A flat ban on plastic bags, however, is not the best way to solve this problem. We should use the market. Brian Joyce is heading in the right direction. As the Globe reports: Meanwhile, state Senator Brian A. Joyce is drawing up plans to file a bill proposing a statewide law that would charge store customers a fee if they elect plastic over other kinds of bags. If the bill passed, the fee would start at 2 cents per bag in 2008 and gradually increase to 15 cents per bag in the seventh year, according to a draft of the plan, which would apply to supermarkets that annually gross more than $1 million. The revenue would go toward the state's recycling programs and toward improving consumer awareness of environmental problems caused by plastic bags.
The problem with this legislation, however, is that paper bags impose just as many costs on the rest of us as plastic ones. As the Globe continues, "Still, the production of paper bags produces more water and air pollution than plastic bags, according to the EPA, which promotes the use of reusable bags. Paper bags also take up more space in landfills."
Joyce should amend his bill to cover all disposable bags -- perhaps defined as all bags that cost less than X.
Some stores no doubt will want to pay the fee themselves and offer free bags. More power to them. The important point is that polluters should pay for the costs of their pollution. |
