City
It's time to get purposeful with plastic bag fee revenue
The decision to implement Toronto's five cent bag fee was perhaps the most impressively half-baked initiative of the David Miller reign. It started off well-intentioned, of course.
"Hey guys, you know what sucks? Plastic bags in the garbage. Let's cut down on those!"
And so came the proposal for a new City of Toronto bylaw that would require retailers to charge five cents for each plastic bag requested.
"This is awesome! We're going to divert so much trash! Oh, and I have the BEST idea for what we can do with the fees collected. We should start by — wait, wait... if we do this, I'm going to need to get some new canvas bags. Should I look for indie prints on Dundas or Queen West?"
I've had to fill in the gaps with a little imagination, of course, but that's essentially how the City of Toronto managed to increase big business bottom lines with a couple quick signatures. (OK, perhaps there was a little more debate, but I digress..) The bylaw, passed in 2009, allowed retailers to keep all of the profits from plastic bag sales, while suggesting that a portion be donated to environmental causes.
Some stores have opted to do so, naturally, though few will disclose how much they're making off the bags compared to the amount they're donating to environmental causes. Is there a dissonance there, or is it just me?
Council will discuss the bylaw at a meeting today, where some councillors (and the mayor) will argue to rescind the fee. Others, such as Councillor Michelle Berardinetti, are pushing for a campaign that would encourage big retailers to divert some of the profits to Toronto's tree canopy.
The problem is, as the bylaw stands now the most the City can do is "encourage." The five cent fee is not a tax — that is, Toronto can't rightfully collect the profits. So businesses are free to donate as much or as little as they like. Which, from an environmental perspective (remember that?) makes very little sense.
The efficacy of the plastic bag fee, nevertheless, shouldn't be underemphasized. Indeed, it has been successful in dropping plastic bag use across Toronto more than 50 per cent, according to city staff. But a law that requires the collection of fees should, too, plan for the use of those fees. And ideally, that plan would not be based solely on fleeting spurts of corporate goodwill.
Those who hope to uphold the fee have the cards stacked against them, especially since plastic bags have now been incorporated into Toronto's blue bin program. But if the bylaw manages to hold, Toronto council should see to it that the funds become more than additional corporate revenue. Asking for charity after the fact simply tows the line of an underdeveloped environmental initiative.
Photo by ravenswift in the blogTO Flickr pool
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Ben
ZStraw. Also, I agree. If we want to really fix the bag problem, we can't ban them outright. If you charge 5 cents for a bag, it's only a disincentive to the portion of the population for whom 5c is a big deal. For the middle-class and up, it's only a minor inconvenience.
Why is the conversation removing the fee (which is hardly even a fee... it's a nothing gesture that makes you think twice) rather than finding ways to ensure the money is used efficiently? I can't imagine ANY store, even something like a Loblaws or a Metro, is making more than a negligible bump in their profits. It's not like they're all making record profits on our occasional nickels.
Making it a real tax all of a sudden creates new costs, both on business and the city. All that effort is wasted - it doesn't produce real goods, doesn't create innovation, it's just red tape. It transfers money from business to accountants and city-workers. Why is that better?
Turning this into a tax that funds unrelated initiatives would be an unproductive disaster.
But keep the fee. As silly as it is, it has made people THINK about plastic.
I can't believe City Hall doesn't have bigger fish to fry than killing initiatives that actually work and save the city money.
Leaving the collected money in the hands of corporations and hoping they will do te right thing will hq e little benefit to the City.
Personally, I feel that if the city REALLY wanted to get rid of plastic bags, then they should charge $1/each.
The customers that complain the most about the bag charge? Well to do, retired old men. I've been bitched at so much about it, it's ridiculous. I'm a cashier, if they want the bag charge gone, then they should hassle Tubby Bear, aka Rob Ford, not me!
http://www.wwf.ca/newsroom/?3500
Interestingly, in reading this, it was a 3 year program, which will have now ended. No idea if money is still being sent the way of the WWF though.
Also, not every retailer is a big boogieman corporation. Smaller businesses don't have the pleasure of buying in the extreme level of bulk required to get bags for under 5 cents.
But besides that - it's a simple city initiative that WORKS. How often can we really say that? If paying 5 cents a bag bothers you, bring your own, or ask your boss for a big ol' raise. If it bothers you on a matter of principle, try Xanax.
On profits to businesses: If people aren't buying bags, stores aren't making money.
On bags' inclusion in the blue bin program: Recycling is the last of the 'three Rs'. Not using bags saves the energy and waste to produce them as well as the energy and cost to they city to recycle them.
On the 'low cost' and upper-middle class: It's the psychology of it, not the actual cost. An additional five or ten cents per trip to the store is not something most people would consider a blow to their finances. It's the idea of paying for something that you can get for free which impacts people.
In summary, the fee works. Why get rid of something that's good for the environment and generates revenue for businesses?
Why can't people just bag their own stuff? I used to be a cashier and I got so sick of lazy people bringing their own bags and then not bagging their groceries. Especially the idiots that didn't want any plastic bags, but only brought one or two re-usables, and then complained the bag was too heavy. The line moves a lot faster if you just bag it yourself.
I shake my head at the unquestioning approval that people give to "green" initiatives, whether they work or not. Prius? Its batteries are toxic resource hogs. CFL bulbs? Inefficient in practice, possibly poisonous.
But this one is different. Making people think about the cheap plastic they use and throw away is worthwhile. You would not believe how many plastic bags are floating around in the middle of the lake -- I see them all summer long when I'm out there. Out they go, to the sea.
Personally, I'd rather see the old No Frills model, where everybody just charges for bags without being told to by some nagging nanny. Let's not encourage our governments to create more useless eco-fees that can't even pay for their own administration.