D.C. soon weaning shoppers off plastic bags
Starting January 1, Washington D.C. will be taxing shoppers 5 cents for every disposable paper or plastic bag in an effort to encourage bag reuse. The tax revenue will go toward cleaning up the District’s Anacostia River. The move follows San Francisco’s full-on ban of plastic shopping bags and L.A.’s prospective ban. Mayor Bloomberg has been trying to pass a bag tax in New York City for the past couple of years; so far all the City Council has approved is last year’s bag recycling bill. Meanwhile, in China, a nationwide ban on extra-thin plastic bags has resulted in a drop in use of 40 billion bags over the past year. 40 billion! Wow.
(via City Parks Blog)
