NYC Soon to Pay for Plastic Bags?
It seems that MSLK’s awareness campaign to reduce plastic bag consumption is working…okay maybe we had nothing to with it, but Mayor Bloomberg recently announced a plan to charge NYC shoppers 6 cents per bag. Sounds great to us. Just a few weeks after Ireland adopted a similar tax of 33 cents per bag — plastic bag use dropped 94 percent.
You guys won’t mind, right? I assume you are all already armed with your resuable totes…
The UK adopted this scheme some time ago, and it definitely seems to be working a treat! Large supermarket chains no longer supply plastic bags out at the checkout, instead customers are urged to bring recyclable ‘bags for life’ to take home their goods. And, when they do so, they’ll get points on their account that goes towards savings and coupons to use in store. Other stores are beginning to charge 5p a bag – not alot, but discouraging the use of plastic bags nonetheless. One thing I did notice about the US was that I was often given 2 or 3 bags to carry just a few items – something totally unnecessary. I think the shop assistants are the biggest culprit, insisting on supplying a bag with anything purchased, when many items can actually just be carried. I think Bloomberg’s plan is an awesome idea, it definitely makes me think twice when I need to empty the spare change in my purse for a carrier bag.
By: Kirsty Moyser on November 20, 2008 at 7:27 am
That’s great news! I totally agree the double bagging is excessive. My new pet peeve is putting a bag around chicken/meat already wrapped in plastic, inside my grocery bag as a whole. Somehow I’ve survived 30+ years already without 4 layers of plastic between me and juicy items.
By: sheri on November 20, 2008 at 2:14 pm
[...] hope that with your support we can initiate the kind of reform that efforts like Urban Tumbleweeds in 2008 had for plastic bag [...]
By: reactions » Blog Archive » Watershed, a New MSLK Eco-Installation on May 15, 2009 at 7:04 pm