[matthewdgreen]

Exactly. The point of this sort of tax should not be to collect revenue, it should be to ensure that non-biodegradable bags are being disposed of correctly. To the extent that this is not happening, any bag tax is malfunctioning. Such a tax is either insufficient or poorly-designed. (Our city just banned chain stores from giving out plastic bags under 4 mils thick, and stores now give out paper and sell re-usable bags.)

[myrmidon]

Hard disagree on this.

Even if that state is just straight up burning all the tax income from single-use plastic bags, by taxing them you incentivize consumers and distributors towards untaxed, ideally more sustainable alternatives, like single use paper bags or robust multi-use bags.

> Our city just banned chain stores from giving out plastic bags under 4 mils thick, and stores now give out paper and sell re-usable bags

I don't see how this is not a massive win? Paper bags are significantly more sustainable, and multi-use bags are more durable and thrown aways less simply from being more expensive alone.

People are much more wasteful with things they didn't pay for, regardless of "inherent" value.

[matthewdgreen]

We’re not disagreeing. I’m saying that the tax should be set high enough that it creates the desired behavior, which is to disincentivize the widespread use of polluting plastic bags AND/OR ensure that they’re recycled and don’t wind up in the environment. If you’re charging $.05 per bag and people are just eating the tax and the bags are winding up in wetlands in similar amounts, that means your tax regime isn’t effective. You should either increase the tax or improve the system. My city’s absolute ban is equivalent to setting the tax to infinity, which is one solution that seems to work well.