Politics As Usual

Who or what benifits from these green fees?

I foresee more stealing of shopping carts in the near future

Its a good idea. As long as the paper bags are heavy, they can be reused about 10 times. I dispute the notion that they are worse for the environment. Don't plastic bags require transportation? Are we including the producton of petrolium in their "costs to the environmnet". Sounds like this study was done by the plastic lobby, but its fine to charge people pre bag, regardless.

Planet my butt this is retailers using this excuse as a reason to help cut their cost, and RAISE their own profitability... trust me, I know. Hopefully people will wake up to this ploy, avoid shopping there.

Stop buying so much junk, and the cost of bags will take care of itself.

Now the real truth behind the eco-fascist movement - revenue. What conservatives have been howling about for years is now being realized - all the hype, all the hysteria, is just about creating an illusion of a crisis to justify more taxation.

Idiocy. Unfettered idiocy.

Greg Nickels needs a new day job.

You think this is bad, just wait til they get their holy grail... "The carbon tax", then we're all, middle class, and especially the poor, really screwed! That's right, the poor will NOT be exempt. Aww, it feels SO good to help the enviroment... PATHETIC!

Seattle is a joke. The mindset there is incredibly stupid. They fill up an area with millions of people; spend hours in commutes, their cars and trucks and SUVs idling and spewing tons of pollutants; ban using deadwood for fires for heating, instead using energy from coal-fired plants; they've run housing up so high that millions think nothing of driving 60 miles to and from work; etc etc. And then they prance around talking about how "green" they are. Bleh.

I lived in Europe for 20 years - bag fees were standard at many shops. ALDI provided cardboard cartons from stocking for free, we learned to carry a plastic washbasket in the trunk or canvas tote bags. You get so used to doing it this way, you don't go back to taking bags which simply clutter your garbage can.
Oh, and I RUN a small business, a yarn shop, and MOST customers carry their knitting bags around anyway SO - we order 250 bags every 2-4 YEARS!!!!! Maybe my customers are special, but more of them refuse bags than take them - or they bring the old one back with them for refills.

Today I took an old purse that I know I was saving for some purpose and cut out elbow patches for my wool sweater. There is so much we can do to reduce wastes in our communities if we just use our heads and hearts. What do you do to reduce wastes in your life? People Power Granny challenges you to keep up with me in reducing wastes while increasing recycling. Mother Earth depends on us, and so do our grand kids. Share what you're doing?