20 cent bag tax a dumb idea? All the while that ever circling trash gyre in the Pacific bears down on Seattle...

Philip Dawdy responds: i'd be fine with banning plastic bags, but taxing them and paper bags, which are recyclable, is just dumb.

It's not just dumb, it would have placed undue hardship on people with fixed incomes. I also already pay for recycling, last I noticed when I wrote out the check.

I guess we are dumb here. We have a token 5 cent fee on plastic bags. I don't know about paper.
Some stores understand some don't.

A store that understands the environmental aspect , asks the customer if they want bags at the totaling of the bill.
Did the customer remember to bring a bag or not?
They went shopping on impulse?

The store that doesn't care just adds 15 cents (or whatever) without telling the customer and bags the groceries.

Both plastic and paper are reusable-recyclable, the tax is to reduce the waste of consuming TOO MANY bags.
How many bags do you need?

I agree with a tax/fee though 20 cents might be too high a cost. What will make you remember to bring a bag?

20 cents a bag? My first thought was, great, I agree we should tax marijuana (Oakland just passed a 1.8% tax on medical cannabis)... then I realized you're talking about a different kind of "bag."

Thank goodness on that dumb bag tax. I would hate to have to pay that. And I like to reuse the bags, so I like getting them.