Every minute of every day, usually without thinking, thousands of New Yorkers reach across the counter at shops and supermarkets and accept a disposable plastic bag. The city’s sanitation department estimates that 10 billion bags a year are tossed in the trash 鈥� roughly 19,000 per minute.
Now, city officials are poised to test whether a 5-cent charge can wean New Yorkers from the convenient but environmentally unfriendly sacks. The City Council approved a bill Thursday that would require most merchants to charge customers at least a nickel for each bag, including those made of paper. Technically, the fee isn’t a tax. Stores will get to keep the money they collect.
The law will go into effect Oct. 1 if, as expected, it is signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has a goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2030. Supporters are hoping the extra charge will force New Yorkers to think twice about accepting a bag and perhaps to start bringing their own. And that, they say, might help keep the bags from filling landfills and blowing into trees and waterways 鈥� as they now do constantly in the city.
Some New Yorkers interviewed as they ran errands this week said they weren’t so sure how they would adapt, especially in a city where most people are shopping on foot rather than by car. “A lot of times I leave work, if I’m on the way home, I don’t have time to have a bag with me,” said Pat Tomasso, 70, who has a neon sign business.
Todd Killinger, 47, who works in advertising, said it’s a good idea. “After a time I think people will switch and bring their own bags but initially not so much,” he said. If the law is enacted, New York City will join more than 150 other municipalities around the country that have passed ordinances either to ban single-use plastic bags or to charge a fee for them. Puerto Rico’s governor signed an order banning plastic bags last fall. There is now a 5-pence charge in Great Britain. Officials from Washington, D.C., testified at a New York City Council hearing that their 5-cent bag fee, enacted in 2009, has led to a 60 percent drop in bag use.
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