Chestertown’s idea seemed simple enough: impose a small fee, say 25 cents, for every plastic bag customers use for their purchases at local stores. A nickel could go back to the stores to compensate costs and the rest could be dedicated to recreation projects or green initiatives here.
What better way to rid the landscape of so much of the plastic detritus that clutters farm fields, clogs the ditches, snags in shrubs and trees?
The Town Council, not exactly the most unified of bodies on many issues, readily agreed. It seemed pretty popular, too, with most residents, who’d have to cough up the quarter – if they didn’t bring their own cloth bags.
Then Mayor Margo Bailey figured she’d better check with the Maryland Municipal League to see if there were any impediment. But this was only a routine check.
Washington, D.C., had done it – one of the few places that successfully has. Their fee is just five cents but their cleanup targets a much poorer area, Anacostia. One penny goes back to the stores and four cents of every charge is for cleaning up the Anacostia River.
So, the mayor checked. As she reported to the Town Council on Monday night, the answer was a disappointing surprise. No, said the MML. They talked to the state Attorney General’s office and got a thumbs down.
“They said, I may call it a fee, but it’s really a tax,” says Bailey. “And I have no taxing authority as a municipality.”
This may be confusing to residents paying local property taxes. But Bailey explains that every taxing authority is something granted specifically by the general assembly.
“Say we stop people speeding. Those tickets, we don’t keep any of it,” Bailey says. “That money goes right to the state. Municipalities have asked the General Assembly if we could keep a little of it, since it’s our police officers, who we pay, who give out the tickets. The state has consistently said no.”
Then what can be done about getting fees on the ubiquitous plastic bags?
The mayor said she discovered that a bill has been introduced in the General Assembly, House Bill 1210, that would do pretty much what Chestertown wanted. And Council Member Mary Stetson came across a companion measure in the Senate, SB462, doing the same thing.
These propose a fee on plastic bags with some money going back to the stores and the rest dedicated to The Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays 2010 Trust for ridding them of what else? Stuff like plastic bags.
The mayor is urging residents to email or write letters to members of the appropriate House and Senate committees considering the bills. There is no general web address for this. Interested folks will have to send individual emails to each committee member. Chestertown will be posting appropriate email addresses on its website.
Meantime, one that works is [email protected].
The plastic bag lobby has been all over Chestertown’s initiative like a plastic bag.
Town Manager Bill Ingersoll said he was called to the phone, and kept on it, by a young woman representing the industry who demanded to know if Chestertown was banning plastic bags. No, he said, only proposing a fee.
Well didn’t he know that plastic bags can be recycled? That there are many wonderful uses for recycled plastic bags? And so forth.
Ingersoll pointed out there really aren’t but a couple of places hereabouts where plastic bags can be recycled (something like only three percent of plastic bags do get recycled). He suggested she, and her industry, weren’t leading the issue; they were falling far behind it.
Ingersoll’s last words to her as he hung up: “You picked the wrong town to bully.”
Courtney Phelps says
You go Bill! Woopwoop! Can the residence of Chestertown do this Quarter Campaign on our own?? And is Acme and Superfresh willing to work with the Town voluntarily?? I’m all for it, in this economy I applaud the Mayor and Council for coming up with an idea that gives back to this community, and helps the environment.
Al Massoni says
Charging for plastic bags doesn’t get to the heart of the environmental concern = doing away with plastic bags all together. Insist that merchants only provide paper bags; Whole Foods does it why can’t others. In Washington, DC we still have the problems associated with plastic bags, merchants haven’t stopped providing them for five cents and patrons continue to pay for “plastic”. A twenty five cent charge for a “bag” is a regressive tax on those least able to pay.
Courtney Phelps says
Ok, lets do it. Why not go back to paper bags?? Wheres the problem with that? Lets eliminate the phrase, ”Paper or Plastic”.
Gren Whitman says
Shopping bags — S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G B-A-G-S — are handy devices designed to carry purchases home from a grocery store, a hardware store, a bookstore, etc. They are generally made from cloth, with handles, and can be purchased at a number of places. My wife and I have several; two stay in my pickup. There’s no reason that C’town’s Mothers and Fathers — indeed, County Commissioners, too! — cannot ask local stores to issue paper bags or OR NONE AT ALL. Let’s make the question — “paper or plastic?” — apply only to cash or credit cards!
I can find something else to empty my cats’ litter box into!