Rahm pushes for tax on plastic bags – Chicago

Posted on October 12, 2016 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting Regulations

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to add another layer to the city’s plastic bag ban – a 7-cent tax – despite the ban’s unintended, harmful consequences.

Source: Rahm pushes for tax on plastic bags

As part of his 2017 budget introduced Oct. 11, Emanuel is proposing adding a 7-cent tax on plastic bags used in the city. This is an extension of an ordinance that went into effect in 2015 that put restrictions on the use of plastic bags.

Under the first phase of this ordinance, which went into effect Aug. 1, 2015, chain stores and franchises over 10,000 square feet are banned from using standard thin plastic bags to carry groceries in, and are required to provide reusable bags instead. These requirements expanded to all chains and franchises within the city under the second phase of the ordinance, which went into effect Aug. 1, 2016. Any store that violates the ordinance could face a fine of $100-500.

After stating the above, this author started rambling on about how plastic bags were more environmentally friendly which is not true at all.  Then how this was imposing unfair taxes on people who had enough taxes on them already.  This is not a tax as you don’t have to pay it!   Bring your own bag and you don’t pay for a plastic bag.  As simple as that.  Clearly this author was aligned with the bag manufacturers who could care less about Chicago and the Great lakes, and only their pocket book.