Bagging Balderdash

All of those reusable bags pushed on us over the past year may finally come in handy… if we remember to carry them around.

Starting Friday, January 1, we started paying dearly for double bagging. As warned, local retailers, by law, were required to start taxing $.05 per shopping bag on this date. Now in effect, this law is among the harshest in the nation on plastic (and paper) bags at food and liquor stores.
Advocates say it’s about changing behavior, not raising money, and attached the message of saving the Anacostia River to pass it easily through the DC Council.

The behavior we noticed was that bag taxes elsewhere – even in San Fran – have failed. And while plastic bags may take 10/20 years to decompose, polypropylene bags (that’s those 20 reusable bags you keep forgetting to take to the store) take upwards of 20,000. As if American families weren’t having enough trouble paying for groceries…

We’re bagging for broke.

*No service seems immune from tax impositions. Parking rates are going up, too, so be warned. Soon, fees that were $.75/hour will be $2/hour and up. And you may be paying for parking on Saturdays (not just in Georgetown) and until 10:30 PM!