Tax Those Bags, Please

Environmentally friendly San Francisco is debating whether it should become the first U.S. city to tax grocery bags to encourage recycling. The Department of the Environment will vote on whether to recommend a 17-cent fee on each plastic and paper bag in an effort to curb the use of an estimated 50 million bags used every year by San Franciscans. Environmentalists say that plastic bags create significant litter problems, are rarely recycled and are a threat to marine life. They add that 14 million trees a year are needed to make 10 billion paper grocery bags nationwide. The 17-cent figure represents costs to the city to clean up and dispose of each plastic bag. However, plastics industry groups say that a San Francisco Environment Department claim that the United States uses 12 million barrels of oil annually to make 30 billion plastic bags is just wrong, and that one million barrels of naphtha, a petroleum derivative is correct. Some countries already charge for grocery bags, including Ireland, which imposed a 15-cent fee per bag in 2002. In Russia shoppers have long used their own fishnet bags and even shopping strollers to haul home groceries and other goods.