The Plastic Bag Lobby is @ it Again
In the second half of 2008 we were really making progress on reducing plastic bags around the country. Cities and municipalities had taken strong steps to introduce legislation which would impose a fee or tax on plastic bag usage. Some even went as far as to ban them in stores. This, obviously, was a threat to the plastic bag lobby. If these bills went through, they would need to find a new line of work and certainly with jobs being scarce its better for them to hold onto their day jobs.
One of the most aggressive efforts to curb plastic bag usage was undertaken by Seattle, where a 20-cent user fee was to be imposed. Then, the plastic bag lobby stepped in and created a petition drive to stop the legislation. They succeeded in having the issue put to the voters in August of 2009. While we have great faith in the people of Seattle, the lobby won’t go down without a long drag out fight.
Many legislators are arguing that now is not the time to impose such a fee because of the economy. In reality, the inverse is true. Now is the best time for such a fee to be imposed. If you are a store owner, this fee will not hurt business, in fact, it will help business. If you switch to reusable bags (which can be sold for $.99), business owners can add a new revenue stream to their business. Plastic and paper bags are a cost center - but reusable products are a profit center. Isn’t now a great time for businesses to find new ways to add revenue to their balance sheets, while at the same time helping the environment?
For consumers we have become greedy. Banks were leveraged 47x, consumers were living off credit cards, in short we were a culture of excess. Plastic bags are part of that culture. Now is the time to deviate from that and start anew. By switching consumers to reusables, we can end the systemic waste that is part of the plastic bag culture - more, more, more - without consideration for the consequences. Just like with our economy, there are ramifications for our actions and now is the time to change course.
Today’s New York Times has an article about the efforts of the plastic bag lobby to halt the migration of consumers and governments towards policies that diminish plastic bags. The Times is reporting, “Stephen L. Joseph, a lawyer in the San Francisco Bay Area, is working with several plastic-bag makers and runs the Web site savetheplasticbag.com. Mr. Joseph has filed lawsuits in an effort to stop bans and fees proposed in California by Manhattan Beach and Los Angeles County. In the Manhattan Beach case, a Superior Court judge ruled on Friday in favor of bag makers, saying the city should have determined whether a ban on plastic bags would have caused environmental damage by increasing the use of paper bags.”
It looks like this is going to be a long fight to get plastics removed from our stores and to fully integrate reusable products in their place. Ultimately it will be worth the effort, but it is going to take a lot time, energy and effort. The plastic bag lobby is fully funded and ready to unleash a strong PR campaign in every single market where plastics are challenged. But they can be defeated.
So my question is, whose in?