Seattle has become the latest West Coast city to approve a measure to charge shoppers for plastic or paper bags used by grocery, drug and convenience stores. And we can't help but think this is another example of good intentions gone amok. The Seattle City Council decided on Monday, by a 6-1 vote, that beginning in January shoppers must pay 20 cents for each plastic or paper bag they use at grocery, drug and convenience stores in the city. The council also passed a ban on foam containers at food-service businesses, which also will take effect in January. In March 2007, San Francisco became the first city to ban the use of plastic shopping bags. Last week, the Los Angeles City Council voted to ban plastic shopping bags from stores beginning in July 2010. Shoppers can either bring their own bags or pay 25 cents for a paper or biodegradable bag. The Portland City Council is considering a similar ordinance that would charge from a nickel to 20 cents per bag. Obviously there's a trend developing here. The question becomes: Is it a good one? We all know the rap on the bags. Paper bags are biodegradable, but they're made from trees. So we can chalk singling them out to "save a tree." Plastic bags, on the other hand, are not biodegradable. It's a known fact that most of them are not recycled and they are a nuisance for landfills -- not to mention they blow around in the wind. So if people are supposed to buy the argument that forcing customers to use reusable grocery bags is a good thing, then why isn't the question before these cities' governing bodies a ban on paper and plastic? That, of course, would generate a lot of political opposition from people who make plastic and paper bags. According to The Seattle Times, the bag fee will require grocery, convenience and drug stores to collect 20 cents for each paper or plastic bag used. The stores would keep 5 cents from each bag to cover costs associated with administering the fee. Small stores that gross less than $1 million a year would keep the entire 20-cent fee. The city would use $1.5 million of the expected $10 million in annual bag-fee revenue to provide at least one reusable bag to each household. Seattle Public Utilities is to come up with a plan by Nov. 25 to ease the fee's impact on low-income families, who typically shop less often and use more bags when they do. The utility will consider options such as distributing more free bags to low-income families or giving them prepaid bag-fee punch cards. SPU also will assess the fee's cost to businesses. So right off the bat the new ordinance is riddled with exceptions and the realization that the issue is more complicated than just slapping a fee on something And when a city deals with it, bureaucracy is bound to expand in direct proportion. The concept of getting the bags out of circulation does have merit. But we can't go along with social engineering that says the best way to get rid of something is to charge a fee for it. That type of approach is a kissing cousin to the "sin taxes" that government levies on the likes of liquor and cigarettes: Tax them to death in hopes that the levies will be a deterrent -- and then bemoan the fact that revenue collected by the taxes is down if consumption does, in fact, decrease. For example, in the case of the bag tax, if people stop using them in significant numbers, where does the money come from to underwrite the reusable bags, particularly for the low income population? We have trouble seeing this tax-it approach accomplishing what supporters hope it will achieve. If we're to get rid of the bags, then let's get rid of them, period.  * Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins, Bill Lee and Karen Troianello.   Seattle has become the latest West Coast city to approve a measure to charge shoppers for plastic or paper bags used by grocery, drug and convenience stores. And we can't help but think this is another example of good intentions gone amok. The Seattle Cit Opinion, LOCAL

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Social engineering in the Emerald City just isn't our bag 6344 social-engineering-in-the-emerald-city-just-isn-t-our-bag Web Story

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08/01/08 Friday edit published Web Daily

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