In its first assessment of how the new law is working, the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue estimated that food and grocery establishments gave out about 3 million bags in January. Before the bag tax took effect Jan. 1, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer had said that about 22.5 million bags were being issued each month in 2009.
Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), sponsor of the bag tax bill, said the new figures show that city residents are adapting to the law far more quickly than he or other city officials had expected.
"While it's difficult to project the annual results based on just the first month's experience, the report shows that residents are making great strides in reducing disposable bag use," Wells said.
The tax, one of the first of its kind in the nation, is designed to change consumer behavior and limit pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Under regulations created by the D.C. Department of the Environment, bakeries, delicatessens, grocery stores, drugstores, convenience stores, department stores and any other "business that sells food items" must charge the tax on paper or plastic bags.
A Washington Post poll conducted in January found that residents were almost evenly split on whether they supported the tax, with 46 percent supporting it and 49 percent opposed to it. Support for the bag tax was highest in Northwest Washington, where about six in 10 residents supported it.
District officials had estimated that the tax would generate $10 million over the next four years for environmental initiatives.
The money will go to the newly created Anacostia River Cleanup Fund, which will spend it on various projects.
But in January, the tax generated only $149,432, suggesting that it might fall short of revenue projections.
According to Wells, large retailers have reported that disposable bag usage has dropped by more than half since the tax took effect.
"I'm thrilled with these results," Wells said. "Not only are we reducing the number of disposable bags entering our environment, but we also have new resources flowing in to help with the cleanup of the Anacostia River."
via ow.ly
Washington DC has done tremendous "damage" to plastic bag companies - by simply adding a 5cent tax for every plastic bag used, they have eliminated 80+% of the problem they were having. The DC area went from nearly 23 million bags per month to 3 million bags per month practically instantly. Now I know there are caveats around needing more extensive data, and will this behavior hold or will people get used to the tax. However, we see here another example of the 80/20 rule - you can usually solve 80% of almost any problem with 20% of the work. Most people want to focus on eradicating 100% of the problem and they get stuck and dont solve anything (this is also known as "Dont let great be the enemy of good."
Though it would be great to get all 23 million bags out of use, it is an incredible impact to get 80% of them out of use. I look at using the same solution at my company every day. By using data, we always look at simple solutions to solve 80% of a problem, getting that implemented, and then focusing on the final 20% problem.
We should be using this for other environment issues too - we dont need to eliminate 100% of our oil use, just 20% of it. We would hit a huge tipping point in the political issues in gathering oil from other countries who have different (and often competing) issues with us, we would make a big impact on allowing the environment to get back into balance, and we would create a lot of jobs in the US.
Now getting back to this article - it looks like the only problem all the success of the 5c plastic bag program has caused is that it is not generating enough revenue as planned because the drop in plastic bag usage has been so dramatic! Great problem to have! |
