Should the state of Connecticut tax plastic bags at the grocery store?

No

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by David Shane

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If certain state legislators have their way, Connecticut will become the first state to enact a tax on all disposable grocery bags, paper and plastic, at 5 cents a bag. Money raised by the tax would go to support recycling initiatives. Proponents say the state would be helped by the additional funds, and that the tax would encourage people to switch instead to reusable grocery bags, decreasing the amount of long-lived plastic litter and also the amount of trash that needs to be disposed of. Some also point out that carbon dioxide is emitted during the manufacture and transportation of the bags, which they believe is contributing to a dangerous warming of the planet.

Opponents of the bill are all over the idealogical map. In addition to taxing the bags, this bill also prohibits any municipalities from restricting their use (in the future), including banning them. And that has angered environmentalists who think that encouraging the use of reusable bags with a tax is not enough, people must be forced to switch by a complete ban on disposable shopping bags. Others worry that if state recycling programs become dependent on this new tax, then if people really do change their behavior en masse and stop using the disposable bags, the recycling programs will see their funding dry up and find themselves in trouble.

At the other end of the idealogical spectrum, the legislation is decried as yet another supposedly necessary restriction (by price) on freedom of choice. While almost none of us are opposed to all environmental regulations, most of us can probably point to regulations that go too far, or are applied so broadly as to be irrational. (Low flow showerheads are a federal mandate whether you live in a desert or next to a major river, for example.) If we enjoy plastic bags for their convenience or because we reuse them, and we handle them responsibly, why should we be punished for making that choice?

And others say the legislation isn't even necessary - the grocery bags are already recyclable, after all, and are often reused to boot. And, in analogy to the argument against gun control, plastic bags don't litter, people litter. Littering is already a crime. This legislation would impose the tax on all equally, to those who dutifully return every bag to the recycling bin and those who throw them all out with nary a thought, punishing the innocent for the acts of the guilty. And finally, recent surveys by Rasmussen and Gallup have shown that a majority of Americans do not attribute global warming to human activity, and do not believe it poses a serious threat, and would therefore likely not support a tax designed to reduce our contribution to it. Surely many Connecticut residents fall into this camp.

If these reasons aren't sufficient to oppose the ban, consider one further point. Will the bill will even accomplish the goals of its proponents? To answer that question, we can look to the experience of other regions that have passed similar laws. In March of 2002, for example, Ireland enacted a tax on plastic shopping bags. Did it work? Indeed, use of the bags fell by over 90%, (although it should be pointed out that the Ireland tax started at 20 cents per bag, and was later raised.)

But that wasn't all that happened. According to an article by Skaidra Smith-Heisters published on the Reason Foundation's website in April of 2008, the Ireland tax also caused the sale of kitchen garbage bags to jump by 77%. People were apparently reusing their grocery bags, and needed the plastic bags whether they got them for free or not. According to the same Reason article, an online MSNBC poll conducted in March '08 found that 38% of respondents chose what grocery bag to use based primarily on its reusability, while 28% said they thought first of environmental concerns. And I can speak to that from personal experience - our plastic grocery bags become the bags that hold our aluminum and plastic recycling, if they aren't recycled themselves. We would probably buy plastic bags if we didn't already have them around.

So this tax proposal is a bad idea. It will be a cost and annoyance for very little gain. Proponents of the measure can accomplish much of what they seek by simply encouraging recycling, and by realizing that many of the bags they see carried out of stores will be put to further good use without nary a government action required.

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