New York City residents send 5.2 billion plastic bags to landfills every year, according to a 2009 report by the Department of Sanitation. Though most of them are recyclable, they can't be included with the rest of the plastics put out for curbside recycling. In 2009, Mayor Bloomberg proposed a 5-cent fee on every plastic bag used by shoppers, but that died on the vine because City Council Speaker Christine Quinn opposed it. Now a state Assemblyman from Manhattan wants to up the ante to 25-cents a bag.
Assemblyman Micah Kellner's bill would impose a 25-cent tax on every plastic bag used at large groceries and pharmacies in NYC. Shoppers would be given the option of taking a reusable bag in exchange for a 25-cent deposit; and any unclaimed quarters would be collected by the city at the year's end. (State law currently requires large retailers to take back plastic bags for recycling.) Kellner speculates that such a tax could raise $250 million a year, assuming people continue their current level of plastic bag consumption.
Kellner says his the 5-cent tax idea doesn't go far enough, telling the Times Union, "If you said we're going to put a nickel tax—that's a nuisance tax. That's a tax to generate revenue. This is about changing people's behavior." But a spokesman for Hilex Poly, the nation's largest recycler and manufacturer of plastic bags, is very worried about the working man. "He's taxing a family $3.75 every time they go to the grocery store—money they could use to buy milk for their children," insists bag man David Vermillion. "Bans and taxes are not only ineffective, they serve to kill American jobs, stifle a growing recycling industry and they drive people to use alternatives that have been shown to be potentially unsafe." Inddeed—who knows how many injuries will result from bagless shoppers dropping cans of beans on their feet?!
Kellner's bill doesn't appear to have much support, and even if it passed in Albany, the City Council would have to vote it in. Quinn, who on Friday urged New Yorkers to compost, has not commented on Kellner's bill yet. But he's not discouraged; the lawmaker has been known to stand outside groceries on the Upper East Side, handing out reusable tote bags with his name on them. "They're very fashionable," Kellner tells the Times Union. "I'm like the Justin Bieber of tote bags." As a counterpoint, here's the Werner Herzog of plastic bags:
