Bacon's Rebellion

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More Ignored News: Bag Tax Coming to Richmond

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by

Steve Haner
in , , , , ,

From American Progressive Bag Alliance flyer opposing local bag taxes.

by Steve Haner

The plastic bag tax recently approved in Roanoke and several Northern Virginia localities, created by the General Assembly in 2020 as a local option, is also coming to the City of Richmond. It was promised in the same September 13 Richmond City Council “climate crisis” resolution that implied a future closure of the Richmond Gas Works. 

As has been the case with the vote on the future of natural gas, Richmond’s dying local new media has missed or ignored the story. Richmond is not one of the localities mentioned directly in this summary of the bag tax status published by Virginia Mercury today.

Proponents claim the tax is not about raising revenue, but instead an effort to suppress bag usage. It is wonderful to see some people do understand how taxes suppress economic activity, even progressives (when it suits them).

No ordinance to impose the tax in Richmond is pending yet. Instead, recognizing who truly is being hurt by this spreading idea (the poor), the resolution pledges:

Council, prior to the imposition of a tax on disposable plastic bags, hereby commits to conducting a robust community engagement process to determine key equity challenges, and plan support for low-income city residents and small businesses to support such residents in a transition to reusable bags.

And:

Council… to the extent permitted by law, hereby commits to appropriating revenues generated from a disposable plastic bag tax to support an equitable implementation of the disposable plastic bag tax…

So, the city’s apparent intent is to use the bag tax revenue to provide reusable bags for its citizens. That seems in general agreement with the authorized uses for the money, as outlined in the fiscal impact statement for bill posted on the Department of Taxation’s website:

All revenue accruing to the county or city from a disposable plastic bag tax would be required to be appropriated for the purposes of environmental cleanup, providing education programs designed to reduce environmental waste, mitigating pollution and litter, or providing reusable bags to recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC) benefits.

The Tax Department published guidance on implementing the tax September 1, setting off this round of approvals.

At five cents per bag, say 50 cents if you leave the grocery store with ten bags, within a couple of weeks that reusable bag pays for itself. But the more likely outcome will be a different answer to the question: paper or plastic?

That is what Food Lion told the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to expect before its recent vote in favor of imposing the tax there. The customers will simply choose paper,

deepening our reliance on international paper bag supply sources… constrained international sources, resulting in additional carbon emissions from the transport of bags as well as additional trucks on the County’s roads to transport the heavier, denser paper bags. For just these two stores, we estimate 12 additional trucks would be added to already congested roads in Fairfax County to accommodate the anticipated shift from plastic to paper.

In efforts for green virtue, trade-offs abound. The bag industry has pushed back by pointing out the plastic bags are recyclable already (although they don’t degrade as readily as paper), actually use few resources, and are re-used more often that many realize. The most common uses are to line trash cans or pick up dog poop. Most household keep a stash handy for several things. An industry sheet of counterpoints used during the Fairfax County debate is worth perusing.

The bag tax is one of the smaller of the myriad tax increases approved by General Assembly Democrats with their new majority, and you may recall it only barely got out of the starting gate on a narrow House of Delegates vote. A few votes needed to switch around after initial failure (as reported in 2020).

The House sponsor was Richmond Democrat Betsy Carr, now in a contested race, and she received support from the other Democrats in the Richmond region. Six Democrats, including Henrico County’s Schuyler VanValkenburg and Southside’s Rosalyn Tyler, basically voted both ways, or tried to. After voting aye they filed a note with the House Clerk for inclusion in the official record that they “intended to vote nay.”

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40 responses to “More Ignored News: Bag Tax Coming to Richmond”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Any idea how that works at self-check-out?

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      Excellent question… 🙂

    2. Eric the half a troll Avatar
      Eric the half a troll

      Which is probably the real reason Food Lion opposes it.

    3. how_it_works Avatar
      how_it_works

      At Lidl you are supposed to tell the self checkout how many bags you are using. They charge for them.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        Yes, but you can bring your own also. Anyone shop at Costco and aware of what they do? No bags at all, right?

        1. how_it_works Avatar
          how_it_works

          Yea, but most of the SKUs at Costco really wouldn’t fit in a regular plastic grocery bag anyway.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            True. But they do make JUMBO plastic bags… no?

            I like the cardboard boxes.

            And I’m not sure if most folks realize that some items come to the grocery store in cardboard boxes, some of them heavy duty – bananas and meat

            https://www.surreyfoodbank.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2018Banana-Boxes-small-300×191.jpg

  2. Walter Hadlock Avatar
    Walter Hadlock

    I agree with most of what appears from Bacon’s Rebellion. I part ways with you when it comes to the 5 cent tax on plastic bags. Inconsiderate users of plastic bags can thank themselves as one of the causes of the tax (fee). If only people would recycle the bags, or make other use of them. But when they bags are found throughout the environment, i.e. bodies of water, scattered around picnic areas, along roadsides, blowing across open fields, it is time to try something new. It’s very easy to acquire reusable bags. The irony of the legislation is I believe it does not include Towns as a jurisdiction that could enact the tax (fee). If so, it will be interesting to see how things go here in Herndon.

    1. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      Taxes are not new.

    2. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      Best “for” argument with me is keeping the things out of the river/bay/ocean. I don’t think a nickel will change behavior, and a good use of the money would be paying for people to bring them back.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        Are you in favor of bottle deposits?

        1. Stephen Haner Avatar
          Stephen Haner

          Sadly I’m old enough to remember them, and the case in the pantry for empties… 🙂 I’m no fan of use and discard, actually. See, this is the kind of enviro issue that I worry more about than the climate over hype…

        2. Walter Hadlock Avatar
          Walter Hadlock

          Here in Fairfax County we have an alternative to the always defeated attempt at bottle deposits. The county has Purple Bins at various locations for people to drop off glass bottles–clean ones preferred. From a description of the Purple Bin Program: “We need clean container glass to make this project work. In fact, the quality of our glass is so high that it is now being recycled into new glass bottles . This is in addition to the glass that is crushed for Fairfax County construction projects.” Other than glass bottles for alcoholic beverages, you soon realize how plastic has taken over food containership.

        3. Walter Hadlock Avatar
          Walter Hadlock

          Here in Fairfax County we have an alternative to the always defeated attempt at bottle deposits. The county has Purple Bins at various locations for people to drop off glass bottles–clean ones preferred. From a description of the Purple Bin Program: “We need clean container glass to make this project work. In fact, the quality of our glass is so high that it is now being recycled into new glass bottles . This is in addition to the glass that is crushed for Fairfax County construction projects.” Other than glass bottles for alcoholic beverages, you soon realize how plastic has taken over food containership.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            plastic water bottles, too ……they are everywhere…

            part of the problem you touched on – plastic has become ubiquitous, so even in 99 1/2% do it right, the 1/2% looms large.

  3. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    Council, prior to the imposition of a tax on disposable plastic bags, hereby commits to conducting a robust community engagement process to determine key equity challenges, and plan support for low-income city residents and small businesses to support such residents in a transition to reusable bags.

    And down come the statues of Sten Gustaf Thulin – all in the name of grocery bag equity.

  4. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    When given a choice of paper or plastic, I choose plastic. I use the plastic bags to scoop up poop from the cat litter. Our plastic bags all end up in the landfill. They are never released into the environment.

    The price tag is small — but infuriating in three ways.

    First, responsible people who dispose of their plastic bags are punished for the sins of a few.

    Second, this represents one more way the political class sticks it to the middle class while making sure lower-income people are insulated.

    Third, this is classic government stupidity. I’m not going to dispose of my cat litter in paper bags. I’ll throw the paper bags away, and go to the grocery store to purchase…. plastic bags for sale at the store.

    The political class is the absolute ruination of this country.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      I dunno guy. Do you resent paying a fee to dispose of your old tires or motor oil/anti freeze, etc? or the core charge on your car battery?

      I too use those plastic bags downstream of their initial use and we donate our extras to the local food pantry which uses them.

      I like the folks who cannot seem to return their grocery carts to the cart corral.. they probably don’t care about the plastic bags either.

      Here’s the folks I cannot understand. In the park, the dog walkers (not all) will bag their dogs poop in a plastic bag – and then leave the bag full of poop on the side of the road or trail and there is no trash pickup – it’s a “pack it in – pack it out” park.

      It’s inexplicable. It’s a big park and dogs could easily poop on the side of the road and trail and not be any different than other critter poop so I cannot understand their logic.

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        I have watched this “bag in the bush” too. I’ve also seen some retrieve them on the way out. I’ve never sat down next to a bag to assure it though.

        BTW, the guy in my profile pick used to go into the bushes to poop. Oddest thing you,ve ever seen. Wouldn’t do it where he could be seen.

    2. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      If they had a written history, it would undoubtedly say, “Our plan to conquer man is nearly complete. Fifty years ago, they fed us so much bone meal our poops turned white and blew away. Now, we are fed gourmet meals and they carry little bags to pick it up. Oh, and we must follow the men everywhere. They’re complete boobs and might hurt themselves. They get up every morning, leave the castle, and come home with nothing. The females, the women, are the goddesses of the hunt. They’re gone less than an hour and come home with bags and bags of goodies and food for everyone.”

      The top 400 wealthiest households paid 8% tax on average. Bet you’re close to 18%. Who’s the ruination? https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/23/americas-richest-400-families-pay-a-lower-tax-rate-than-average-taxpayer.html

      There already IS wealth redistribution. Raising the top tax bracket to 60% and closing loopholes will only slow it down, never reverse it.

  5. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    GOOD. Period.

    Maybe they’re less of a problem here, but I’ve seen them offshore. And in Texas they festoon the fences and the trees miles from nowhere.

    And, if you’ve ever been unlucky enough to have one attach itself to your exhaust system, it’ll stink up your car with the smell of melting plastic.

  6. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    The young Abe Lincoln said something akin to “No foreign invader will ever drink water from the Ohio river. We shall live as free men until we die by suicide.”

    Burying ourselves in our trash is suicide.

    Plastic bags do warn that they are not toys. But what really frosts my chestnuts are containers and packaging with a recycle symbol that cannot be read with the naked eye. Standing at the sink with a plastic container and a magnifying glass trying to determine, “Is that a 1, or a 7? Do they make a 7? Is there any reason to use a 7 if nobody recycles a 6?”

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      🙂 Ageing eyes don’t help.

    2. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      “Recycling” of some things is problematic if they don’t make a “profit” or pay for themselves, and instead it’s more cost-effective to landfill them than pay to have them recycled.

      It also appears to be one of those rare issues where there is not such a stark “culture” divide but also not a lot of “transparency” in terms of what things are recycled for what cost or profit and what things are landfilled.

      For instance, our county DOES collect plastic but in the same bin as aluminum cans and cardboard. The website provides virtually no information as to the economics of the recycling.

      In the meantime, the green box attendant advises that he cannot accept oil-based paints and anti-freeze but that LED TVs and computer monitors go directly into the same box as garbage.

      In THAT context – plastic bags are, in my mind, more of a visual nuisance than near as “weighty” as much larger and bigger refuse that is not recycled and instead landfilled.

      By the way, dead solar panels just go right into a green box at the main transfer station that other metal/glass like patio doors go into.

  7. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    I have long disliked plastic bags. When filled with groceries, they flop all over the back seat of the car. Groceries spill out of them. There are so many of them, even for a a modest amount of groceries. Often, the checkout folks will put just one item in a bag.

    But there is a quandary. Studies have shown that paper bags have a larger carbon footprint than plastic bags. So I use large, reusable, insulated, bags made of plastic (!) that I bring in myself. The problem with that, of course, is that the Food Lion checkout stations are configured for the checkout folks to use plastic. The result is that I bag my own groceries to help them out.

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Harris Teeter allows for easy customer bagging, and I use their reusable bags.
      Food Lion drives me nuts. The bagging station is like you said, designed for a checker-bagger. But worse, I have bought 4 items at Food Lion and gone home with 6 bags.

    2. Eric the half a troll Avatar
      Eric the half a troll

      I am a little skeptical on the plastic is better than paper carbon claim. I am not sure the concept that paper C comes from the atmosphere originally while plastic C comes from the ground is taken into account. Paper manufacturers have their issues to be sure but when they harvest timber, they replant and those new growth forests do temporarily sequester C from the atmosphere.

      That being said, reusable bags are definitely preferable to either plastic or paper, imo.

      1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        Here is a summary of the various studies:https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/04/30/plastic-paper-cotton-bags/

  8. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead

    Should those using a SNAP card have to pay the bag tax?

  9. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    On some road trips out west, we have run into various regulations and practices in different states and localities.

    In some of them, they sold heavy duty plastic bags for ten cents. Throwing them away would feel wrong at least to me and the store encouraged people to save them and bring them back to save 10 cents per bag for more.

    I like that approach myself.

  10. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    When I started reading this, I expected a press release for the fossil fuel industry. Then I read it another time and realized it’s a pretty straight analysis./. My only complaint is the ideas (in the headline) that the media is ignoring this. The Virginia Mercury had a thorough piece on the issue. So did media outlets in Roanoke. Are you referring to the Richmond Times-Dispatch? It can’t be the TV stations because their news formula is car wrecks and murders.

  11. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
    energyNOW_Fan

    Yes in Fairfax we have it coming to us.
    Ffx already banned plastic bags for lawn waste earlier this year, going to fun to see how the Fall leaf season works. It’s a mess because the trash haulers do not have the manpower to pick up the lawn waste, so it sits there. Then they throw it in the regular trash, and we could have used plastic bags in the first place.

    But according to the Ffx Dems, and confirmed in the latest issue of Consumer Reports, plastics are deadly to humans. According to Consumer Reports, even plastics put in the landfill decompose to form micro-plastics that leach out and get into the human body tissues. Come on Dems, what do you think happens to millions of car tires on the road every day?

    Fairfax has waste-to-energy incineration so the need to get rid of plastics is simply Dems want to get in our faces with their mandates.

    Fairfax is not saying litter is the problem. They are saying human health impacts of micro plastics, which is nuts. And also extreme impact on the environment…what us that? A made up issue? These are made-up issues that liberals believe in.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      looks like I spoke too soon and was clearly wrong! 😉

    2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      That lawn “waste” makes great mulch and, even better, it’s free. In the fall, i go around the neighborhood collecting bags of leaves left out on the curb. They go into a large pile in a back corner of my yard. By spring, I have the best mulch and compost you could want.

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        At my old house, rather than drag the leaves to the street, I used to do like you and pile it in the back corner to mulch as did the previous owner. I realized I’d gone too far when I could step over the fence.

    3. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Don’t know about microplastics but glitter and the stuff in women’s makeup has been found in water intakes to drinking water systems and in fish and such.

    4. Eric the half a troll Avatar
      Eric the half a troll

      “Fairfax is not saying litter is the problem. They are saying human health impacts of micro plastics, which is nuts.”

      Micro plastics is a serious issue in terms of the ubiquitous nature of its impact in the environment. The jury is still out as to human health implications but it seems rather short-sighted to just write the potential off completely as “nuts”. Perhaps what you are getting at is that these bags are a de minimis contributor compared to other sources which may be true. The idea that tires contribute more than grocery bags seems like a weak argument given the fact that we don’t really have alternatives to tires but we do for grocery bags. Kind of a low hanging fruit thing.

      Edit: According to this source, secondary micro plastics which are micro plastics that “originate from degradation of larger plastic objects, such as plastic bags, bottles or fishing nets account for 69-81% of microplastics found in the oceans”. So it ain’t nothing….

      https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20181116STO19217/microplastics-sources-effects-and-solutions

      1. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
        energyNOW_Fan

        I am not saying micro-plastics is not a concern, I am saying it has nothing to do with plastic grocery or lawn bags. from your article, Main sources: laundering of synthetic clothes (35% of primary microplastics); abrasion of tires through driving (28%). Liberals hate plastics, and want to ban them for virtue signaling, but they want to say lofty concerns about human and animal health are their true concern. Where is the proof? Liberals go by the Precautionary Principle these days, which to them means there is no need to prove their claims of extreme toxicity of things they hate.

        Geez I think current Consumer Reports says we cannot even safely put plastics in landfills because they break down to micro-plastics and get out. This is nuts. And is symptomatic of where American liberals want to go with Chemophobia.

        1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
          Eric the half a troll

          Main sources OF PRIMARY MICROPLASTICS which only make up about 15-30% of the problem. So your tires source is down to as low as 4% of the problem.

          I think the problem of microplastics from grocery bags (and water bottles) largely comes from those sources which don’t make it into our landfills. That being said, the concept of plastics breaking down in landfills and leaching out (even with leachate collection) is not “nuts”. It is perfectly feasible – Consumer Reports is not the authority on that subject, however.

          I think you are correct about Liberals hating plastics. But the impetus for this hate is indeed the impacts on our environment. They also detest the industry which cares little about the environmental impact of their product and puts profit above all else. Given the track record of this industry, it is hardly surprising that the opposition would assume the worst.

  12. Water Conservation Education Week: Reducing Plastics! – Virginia Conservation Network

    […] up: City of Richmond? The Richmond City Council promised a plastic bag policy in their “climate crisis” […]

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