https://tennesseestar.com/2020...art-of-the-new-year/

A new five-cent plastic bag fee goes into effect in Minneapolis at the start of the new year after it was passed into law by the Minneapolis City Council in November.

The ordinance states that “retail establishments shall collect a pass-through charge of not less than five cents for each carryout bag provided to customers.” A “carryout bag” is defined as a “paper, plastic, or reusable bag that is provided by a retail establishment at the check stand, cash register, point of sale, or other point of departure to a customer for the purpose of transporting food or merchandise out of the establishment.”

Retailers are expected to periodically provide inspectors with a “report identifying the number and value of the carryout bag fees charged to customers.” As such, all customer receipts must indicate the “number of carryout bags provided and the total amount of the pass-through charge.”

City officials said in a press release that they won’t impose any fines on non-compliant retailers during the first six months while they “work on educating.”

The goal of the ordinance, said the city, is to “encourage shoppers to bring their own bags” and “protect resources used to produce paper and plastic bags.” The city claims that Minnesotans throw away 87,000 tons of plastic bags every year and recycle less than five percent of them.

City officials have provided residents with a number they can call to report retailers “who aren’t complying with the ordinance.”

The new ordinance was first introduced in February 2018, but didn’t pass the full council until November 22 of this year. Mayor Jacob Frey approved and signed the ordinance on November 26.

A companion ordinance directs four departments in the Minneapolis government to “create an outreach plan to raise awareness and support for residents to bring their own bags when shopping.”

“Staff will report back to the City Council in the first quarter of 2020 on the plan and actions taken to assist residents, especially those low to moderate income residents, in understanding the new rule and resources to help them more easily bring their own bag,” states the measure.

The new law does provide several exemptions, including bags used for “produce, bulk foods, small items, carryout restaurants, farmers markets, food banks, retail establishments that do not possess a cash register; secondhand bags, bags sold in packages, dry cleaning bags, bags given out with no transaction; bags given at hospitals, car dealerships and car washes; and bags used for litter cleanup.”

Where does the 5 cent fee go?

I think Milwaukee is looking at outlawing plastic straws. Since they can’t make progress on important stuff they want to ‘virtue signal’ to like minded ‘woke’ people.

Damn shame that Minneapolis has ruined such a beautiful state.

I bring my own reusable cloth bags to Publix as we don't like the waste but to have the government mandate it on a consumer is just bullshit.

Just more nanny state intrusion under the guise of helping the environment.

But, that’s what they elect in the cities.

Just like global warming/climate change, they never offer real solutions to the supposed pollution, only taxation. If the city is really serious that plastic bags are evil, they should ban them and mandate only paper … which comes from trees.

MD has the same policy for years now, but its chock-full of stupid liberals.

Denver Colorado city council just voted a 10 cent per plastic bag tax which will go into effect over the Summer. The councilman who sponsored the bill is a self-proclaimed Socialist, her positions are really more Communist in nature, and while the tax collected is to go towards reducing Denver's plastic use, she said she would be happiest if the fund didn't collect a single dime and went bankrupt because every shopper brought their bags.

When the tax was first proposed one local radio show host looked into the cost of plastic shopping bags and found that they could be purchased, with a message or picture, for a few cents per bag, and is proposing that he buy a few thousand plastic bags with a picture of the councilman who sponsored the tax bill, saying something along the lines of "courtesy of" such and such, then standing in front of a grocery store and just handing them out to shoppers as they walk in.

Considering the amount of Colorado's plastic, let alone the U.S.' plastic actually makes into the world's oceans and into the nostrils of sea turtles, it's nothing more than wokeness virtue signalling...but then again, how "woke" can one really be when ignoring the basic facts surrounding an issue.

Interestingly, there was a study done and it found all kinds of nasty bacteria born illnesses brewing in the cloth shopping bags as various foods ooze their juices into the fabric of the nooks and crannies... especially considering that most shoppers don't wash their cloth bags often.

Meanwhile, in France, where consumers have had to purchase grocery bags if they didn't bring their own for quite some time now...

Here's a taste of the future here in some of these states.

France to phase out single-use plastics starting January 1
Latest update : 31/12/2019

© Reuters / Yves Herman
Article text by FRANCE 24

Starting January 1, three single-use plastic products will be banned in France: plates, cups, and cotton buds. More will be banned next year, marking the first steps toward the government’s goal of phasing out all single-use plastics by 2040.

They’re used just once, but stay in the environment for hundreds of years. Now France is taking first steps towards banning single-use plastics, starting with three products: plates, cups, and cotton buds. Plastic straws and cutlery will follow on January 1, 2021.





The ban was issued in a government decree, published on December 27, to bring France in conformity with European Union directives. It defines single-use plastics as those not designed to be reused “for a use identical to that for which it was intended”.

Shops that carry the banned products will be allowed to continue selling them for six months after January 1, provided they were produced or imported beforehand.

The decree includes a temporary exemption for compostable products containing at least 50 percent of organic materials, as well as for cutlery used in health and corrections facilities and on transport such as trains and airplanes. The exemptions will expire in July 2021.

This comes as French lawmakers continue to debate the details of a wider-ranging anti-waste law. A first version of the law, which aims to promote the “circular economy”, was passed by parliament earlier this month. It would set a 2040 target to phase out all single-use plastics, with the goal of recycling 100 percent of plastics by 2025. Specific plastic products would be phased out year by year, and recycling guidelines would be standardised throughout France by no later than the end of 2022.

As of 2018, only 25 percent of plastic packaging in France was recycled, while the rest was incinerated or put in landfills. This puts France behind the European average of 30 percent. Sceptics say it will be impossible for the country to reach a 100 percent recycling rate by 2025 from this starting point.

This fall, an investigation by the online magazine Quartz found that at most 9 percent of plastic produced worldwide is recycled. Meanwhile, global plastic production continues to climb rapidly, the investigation found.

The last 15 years saw more than plastic produced than in all previous human history, and plastic production is expected to triple again by 2050.

https://www.france24.com/en/20...-single-use-plastics

quote:

Originally posted by greco:
Five whole cents!?! Wow, now that’s an incentive. Does it have to be in good condition? Cut one in half and get 10 cents! Do the thicker or bigger ones get more refund, like 6 or 7 cents ? JHC, so these jokers have this much time on their hands??? Need a part-time legislature.

You should read your CUT.

This is a tax, not a deposit. Nowhere does it say anthing about getting money back...

Banning cotton buds. Known in the States as Q tips. How you gonnna clean your guns? Of course it is France. Mississippi does not usually follow French trends so I feel safe for the moment.

As a kid we used paper bags and recycled them into lunch bags for school and garbage bags for the trash. One thing I will never forget is the number of plastic bags in trees after a hurricane. They just stay there forever.

.05 is not a big deal.. the principle of coercing behavior with taxes is a big deal.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Banning cotton buds. Known in the States as Q tips.

Yes, it took me a minute to figure out what a “cotton bud” was.

But now I am curious. I have seen a few cotton swabs (to use the generic American term) with plastic sticks, but not many. Even Q Tips that started it all use paper sticks (they used to have some made with wood sticks, but no more). I would not have thought, though, that plastic swab sticks were such an issue. Are the French so obsessed with that type of personal hygiene that they accumulate in windrows in the gutters like their cigarette butts? ( )

My county started it last year. Not a "tax" here in that the county doesn't get the money, the store does. The idea was to get people to bring reusable bags. I'd say in the first quarter of the year, it worked maybe 8%? A year in it's probably around 3-4%? (compared to say 2% of people doing it before the law took effect)

Anyone remember when plastic bags were pushed to replace paper to save the trees?

Seems like the environmentalists can't get it right.

My county just banned them outright

https://www.wkyc.com/article/n...00-93b3-8760b1892e96

....and yet disposable diapers are far more destructive, there are far more of them being used, and take 500 years to decompose. But certainly, focus on straws and grocery bags. What about plastics in cars? Plastics in nearly EVERYTHING we use?

Looks like Dustin Hoffman got accurate advice about the future:

Man, that answer is easy. Just tax them for not washing their bags.......

If saving the environment was the goal why not just outright ban plastic bags period? Get rid of them. Cut the supply and there’s no demand. Customers can use paper or bring their own. Two shopping trips is about all it would take. But no, plastic bags are bad unless of course you’re willing to pay in which case use as many as you want.