The Daily Campus

Issue date: 4/2/09 Section: Commentary

On March 18, the town of Westport banned the distribution of plastic bags by town retailers.

The move wasn't as great an adjustment as one might think. Two of the largest grocery stores in the town - Whole Foods and Trader Joe's - had already stopped distributing plastic bags, in keeping with their eco-friendly corporate branding. All that was left was for Super Stop & Shop and the town's smaller retailers to follow suit.

However, what serves Westport does not necessarily serve the rest of the state, and so we oppose the recent bill introduced by Representative Kim Fawcett of Westport, which would require retailers to charge consumers five cents per paper or plastic bag, beginning in 2010. Only a few products could continue to be bagged without tax, including produce, meat, baked goods, flowers, drugs and delivered newspapers.

The bill has two aims. The proposed law is partly behavioral, intended to discourage people from taking disposable bags at retailers and encouraging them to bring or purchase their own reusable bags. But the bill's proponents also intend for the tax to help plug the state's budget deficit; with 400 million plastic bags used in Connecticut each year, the tax could conceivably raise $20 million.

However, a tax discouraging consumer purchases is the wrong way to go about raising tax revenue in this difficult climate. Admittedly, some businesses, particularly grocers, seem unconcerned by the proposal. However, other industry groups have bitterly complained, insisting the tax would hurt sales; the Connecticut Retail Merchants Association, which represents small retailers and large chains such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot, has been especially vehement in its protestations.

Whether one believes the grocers or the retailers, the chance of further depressing spending is a risk not worth taking as consumer confidence continues to plunge. More worthy is the goal of reducing the wanton waste of petroleum-based plastic bags and resource-intensive paper bags, a goal that helps "not only Connecticut, but the whole country," as put by Democratic Co-Chairman of the Environment Committee, Rep. Richard Roy. If all the oil used in U.S. plastic bag production were conserved, it would be the equivalent of taking 17,000 cars off American roads.

Connecticut is only a small state, and the environmental benefit of our actions would be slight. While a punitive, consumer-targeted tax would decrease disposable bag usage very quickly - a 33-cent tax on plastic bags in Ireland decreased their use by 92 percent - now is the not the time for such a measure. Perhaps the state legislature could look into offering tax credits to businesses that voluntarily offer incentives for consumers who bring their own bags, or encouraging the recycling of bags on-site at major retailers and grocery stores. Anything might be better than a consumer tax, because right now Connecticut's consumers need all the incentives to spend that they can get.

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