Living with Seattle's economic downturn, with housing values and sale prices dropping significantly, rents skyrocketing, wages stagnant, jobs hard to find, consumers straining with household budgets, purchasing power down and the Consumer Price Index is more than double its predicted increase, I applaud the citizens of Seattle and their support groups for collecting petition signatures, 14,000 needed and 22,000 submitted on time, and putting this ordinance to a vote of the people.
A 20 cent charge (fee or tax) for forgetting to bring your own reusable grocery bag to the grocery, convenience, or drug store is too much for those challenged with making financial ends meet. The 20 cent fee or tax is too much for many to bear and should be overturned.
One thought provoked the mayor and city council's quest to rid our environment of plastic and paper bags are the tens of thousands of plastic bags, hundreds of cases used DAILY and NOT RE-USED. Seattle's Independent Contracted Janitorial Companies clean thousands of business offices and office cubicles throughout SEATTLE. On a typical night, office trash is collected, trash receptacles relined with "fresh new" plastic bags, and this collected trash ends up in landfills. I do not see a fee or tax premium levied on these users!!
Perhaps the idea was tabled because there are "no cash registers handy", no way of taxing and collecting for immediate useage, no one there to collect and account for this missed opportunity. Perhaps they thought they would just focus on the consumer's point of retail sale and collect what fees they can.
Promoting the idea of mass advertising the recycling of plastic and paper bags is positive and will work. Rewarding shoppers with a one-time per visit .05 cent or .10 cent credit for those shoppers who bring their own reusable grocery bags for use while grocery or convenience shopping, is a much better way of achieving the same results.
Changing the way shoppers shop is the goal. 20 cent bag fee is not the way.
Mike and Linda Corbell
West Seattle
