I am 100% opposed to this. I am just so peeved I can't even think straight. I'm all for taking care of the environment and reducing waste (reducing, reusing, and recycling to be exact), but this is ridiculous and I hate it. Thankfully, I don't live in Seattle or King County and this actually doesn't apply to me. But the principle may reverberate around the state or country or who knows.
Here are some of my reasons for being completely irked at this:
- No motivation to recycle: In California (where I lived for four months in 2003), they have plastic and glass bottle deposits you have to pay if you buy a product in a plastic or glass bottle. This includes milk cartons, soda pop, apple juice, whatever. They use the deposit as a way to encourage recycling. I love it! The reason why I love it? When you take your plastic bottles in to be recycled, you get your deposit back. Did the Seattle City Council approve this? No. They get the 20 cents from the people, who have no way to get their 20 cents back if they do the civil thing and recycle. Is there really motivation to recycle here?
- No motivation to reuse: I use plastic bags from grocery stores as trash bin liners. If I am forced to pay 20 cents for each one, I guess I'll buy the official trash bin liners that Glad or Hefty or whoever manufactures. And isn't that actually creating more waste? Instead of using a bag to bring my groceries home then using that same bag to throw away my grease can, now I'm using TWO BAGS? And paying TWICE for the privilege?
- Less motivation to reduce: Currently, I take seven reusable sturdy bags with me to the grocery store when I get my groceries. Yay! I am doing what the City of Seattle wants people to do. I enjoy doing my part, because I've decided that's the person I want to be (more on that later). When I use my bags, I get 5 cents off my bill for each bag I bring in. My question: are people still going to get bag refunds for the reusable bags they bring in? Will I still get money off my bill for doing what the City is now forcing me to do? Or will I just be charged if I don't?
- The Costco/Sam's Club method: If you shop at Costco or Sam's Club, they don't have bags. Instead, they have huge bins with the boxes that the products you are buying came in. Has the City thought about encouraging the grocery stores to adopt this method? Use the boxes from the back, the boxes that people who are moving come in and beg for, to take groceries home? And therefore reusing those boxes, instead of just compacting them down in a bailor and throwing them out?
- The ridiculous bagger issue: How many times have I been to a grocery store and asked for paper bags, and the cashier or bagger responds by putting my paper bag in a plastic bag? And then proceeds to load my groceries? Or I buy four boxes of cereal, and the employee double bags my items? Or I buy 12 things but somehow I find my items in five separate bags?? Did the City ever think to talk to the stores about training their people better? To reduce waste that way?
- The exercise syndrome: Think about P.E. in elementary school or high school. You hated it. I absolutely hated it. Couldn't wait to get out of it. It was awful. But, then, I get to college, I gain 15 pounds living in the dorms, and I decide to give running and weight-lifting a try. I start to love exercise. I decided to do it myself. I converted myself. It's the same thing with eating broccoli or watching less TV. Something happens, and you have a change of heart and then change your behavior. I think this whole green/earth living thing needs to be the same way. If people don't do it for themselves, they won't keep it up. If you're charging them for it, they'll be bitter instead of grateful for the opportunity to help.
5 comments:
Seattle has got to be the most hippie-lovin' green city in the country (no offense to Seattle-ites...I'm just sayin'). I can see the benefits, but I also follow your arguments. I use reusable bags as well, but occasionally I pick up the store's bags when we need some paper ones for whatever. On the note of bagging 12 items in 5 different bags...I once went to Target, just before New Years, purchased 4 items, and it all ended up in 5 bags. I had picked up a couple bottles of sparkly stuff, which each went in their own bag, then in a bag together (1,2,3), a food item (4) and a non-food item (5). I watched her bag it all, and I was like, are you kidding? Before walking away, I took the two bottles out of their individual bags, dumped my other two things into the bag with them, and walked away with 1 bag on my own. Ugh.
I agree. I just have one question. Where is my 20 cents going? I think I would be more okay if I knew it was going to go back into the city to provide services for the community that I live in to make it better. NOT congressmen's pay check.
You know, I am strangely apathetic about this issue. I feel like I should be outraged, or giving it a big thumbs up, but instead I find myself shrugging and saying "well, I do CHOOSE to live in this crazy city..." As for forcing people to be good: there are people (like a certain family member of mine) who feel that the earth is there to be used up - by them - with no thought to, say, my son. These people may need to be forced to be good. As for the 20 cents - I agree...strange...where does it go? It should go to something related. I was also thinking (sorry for my randomness) as I walked into Fred Meyer today lugging my now over-20lb baby and realizing I had forgotten my reusable bags once again, that this just totally adds one more thing I have to lug into the grocery store with me. Ah well. The one that really bugs me (although I am trying to use more cloth) is that I read that last year Seattle almost tried to pass an extra tax on disposable diapers. To me that is way more forceful because it hurts people who are already scrimping to diaper their babes, and these generally are not the people who are going to be able to make that initial cloth investment even if it's cheaper over time. End of novel.
You've opened up a good discussion here! I wasn't aware on the 20 cent charge and too am wondering what it will be used for. I have recently pruchased some reusable bags and my main complaint so far is, "Why to they try and cram them so full?" I can barely lift them when I get home! I guess I just need to buy more so when I go to the store to buy 12 items I can have my 5 reusable bags for them to put them in and it'll be okay.
Well, that just cured my current bout of Seattle "homesickness"! How incredibly obnoxious. Almost as fun as all of those mandatory recycling laws they put into place as we were leaving the city (where the garbage man could refuse to take your regular garbage if there was more than a certain percent of recyclable items in it!)
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