It probably would.I wonder if a paying customer will have the option of waving the bag tax if he brought along his own bag to place merchandise in?
Official Off Topic Discussion Thread #1
- Thread starter Chrisplosion
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I could be wrong but I think that's how it was pitched in NY. Ugh there's comments I want to make but can't. Lol
Hello; This sort of thing was proposed decades ago. Not exactly the same thing maybe but maybe similar. The idea came about as the use of "one way", single use or throw away items became popular often in the form of plastic.
Back in the early 1960's when I became stout enough I went with my father as a helper on a Coca-Cola truck. We carried all returnable glass bottles at first. had an empty bin on the truck for the empties. My grandfather operated the bottle washing machine which cleaned the empties. Then they were refilled and used again. They had a useful cycle of about 25 times on average. Each full bottle was sold with a 2 cent premium added. If you returned the bottle you got the two cents back. A coke was a dime and I often drank one near the store and got my 2 cents back right away. In other words an empty coke bottle was not trash and have enough value that folks saved them or would pick one up for return.
By the time I stopped working on the Coke truck, mid 60's, we had begun to load a bin or two with the one way aluminum cans. Still not a bad deal as the aluminum could be collected and turned in for cash.
Now we have lots of plastic bottles with a single use and that become trash. Same for plastic bags and most all plastic. This plastic has become a dramatic environmental issue. So many ways the plastic is a problem. The huge plastic islands in the oceans is one. That plastic slowly breaks into smaller and smaller bits, it does not go away. The smallest bits are called microplastic I think. This microplastic is now found incorporated into the zooplankton which is the base of the ocean food chain.
The idea back in the late 60's and early 70's was to add a cost to pretty much each item sold that could be refunded if the item was returned in some manner and not thrown away. Even if thrown away by one person that item still has some monetary value and would be picked up and returned by another person. If a company made a toaster for sale then some amount was added to the sale price that would be paid when the broken toaster was returned. The idea was that the company which made a profit on the sale would have to deal with the item at the end of it's useful cycle and the item would not just become trash for the rest of us to have to pay for the disposal of. Many of you likely have not heard of this concept because it did not make it into laws.
What do you wanna bet if a bottled water company had to take back much of its old plastic bottles, that they would come up with a solution. As it is they make a sale and the rest of us have to deal with the trash that results?
I feel ya.....thats how it is at a few of the "discount supermarkets" that we stock shop at.You can either buy their plastic bags,bring your own or use the many discarded cardboard boxes around the stores.
I remember the money back on return of soda bottles back when I was a kid and sadly,I am aware of the huge amounts of plastic trash floating in the oceans.Our city has a recycle policy in place for such items and I do my small part of placing any recyclable item that I can in the blue bins;soda cans,paper,aluminum containers,water bottles and yes....even plastic shopping bags.
I just don't like that their "solution" to everything is always to drain more and more tax money out of the citizens....for instance,our mayor has imposed a tax on all "sugary drinks" that are sold within the city.......it just never ends.
Yet I'm pretty sure all the "good" drinks are over priced and those nasty sugary drinks are what most can afford.
It was originally only aimed at soda,as it was called the "soda tax" but the theives down in city hall decided to broaden it to include all bottled sugary drinks.I am not a huge soda drinker or of the other drinks either but I dont appreciate the nickel and dimeing tactic.
The sale of fireworks in this state is but another example.The sale of the so called "good stuff" has been illegal in PA for years...until this year when it was decided to allow the sale but with a tax of a certain percentage added to the purchase price.
Hello; When it is a just a straight "tax" I do not like it either. The plan I talked about was not a tax. Yes for example you paid an extra nickel on a bottle of something up front, but you got that nickel back when the empty was returned. Or you bought a washing machine and paid an extra $30 up front but got it back when the machine was broken later on. I get that it does not seem much different than a tax up front but the back end is where we get a payoff. Many live in places where we have to pay a monthly garbage bill so our trash will be picked up. While not everything can be returnable for sure, my bet is much can be. That monthly garbage bill is in a sense at least in some part a sort of tax like expense we each pay so the end of use life for a product can be dealt with.
Oh I understood that your examples are not taxes.I just went off on a tangent vent,I guess.
