I was inspired by an article in the New York Times that discussed the success of Ireland taxing plastic bags. It is my belief that a future conscious city such as ours should consider championing this cause here in Canada.

While plastic bags don’t occupy that much space in landfills due to their compressibility the real cost is in their manufacturing. It amazes me that something like this can be free when they are certainly not free to produce. Stories I have read state that most bags come from China where manufacturing is so cheap that the cost to ship something half way around the world doesn’t make the price higher than we could make it domestically — this is the WalMart era. As a rough guesstimate it takes around 18 million litres of oil to make 1 billion shopping bags. Canada probably uses between 10 billion and 30 billion bags per year a majority of which end up discarded, poisoning our lakes and rivers. (http://reusablebags.com/facts.php)

Most grocery stores are now providing cheap alternative bags that are reusable and thus very environmentally friendly. Why not add a little pressure to this trend by taxing plastic bags? A 33 cent tax would make plastic bags as expensive by storage volume as the reusable bags and could be collected at the register automatically if no reusable bags are presented or purchased. The computer systems in place at area grocery stores are more than capable of carrying this out. My experience in local grocery stores has been that reusable bag are on the rise with more and more families using them. However, I think out of apathy, a lot of consumers just don’t bother to care or forget their bags. Adding a tax would certainly perk them up and make a far number more opt for the inexpensive reusable bags.

It is my hope that one day our world operates in such a way that life can be sustained on this planet for centuries to come. At this moment in time the future looks bleak but we can help. Taxing plastic bags is one step toward waking up the populace and making it easy for them to join the cause.