A funny thing happened when the Chicago City Council tried to keep plastic grocery bags out of landfills by banning them. The bags didn’t go away — they just got thicker.
Retailers skirted the rule change by packing merchandise in thicker-gauge plastic bags that were exempt from the ban because they’re supposedly reusable. Those sturdier bags are still ending up in our landfills. Most of them are not biodegradable.
We love Mother Earth as much as anyone, but we weren’t fans of the ban, which required businesses to stop providing a convenience to their customers or pay a fine. Many retailers already did their part by providing bins to collect used bags for recycling. And while more environmentally conscious citizens are bringing their own reusable bags, many people liked to have the so-called disposables for other uses. Ask any dog owner.
So it’s not surprising that there’s some grousing about Plan B, which took effect Wednesday. Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2017 budget includes a 7-cent tax on every disposable bag — paper or plastic — supplied by retailers to customers.
As with the bag ban, the bag tax was sold as an incentive to get people to bring their own cloth or otherwise reusable bags. Fewer bags doled out at checkouts means fewer bags filling trash dumps and littering streets and parkways.
But yeah, it’s yet another Chicago tax. City officials estimate it will generate $12.9 million a year. The city gets 5 cents on each bag and retailers get the other 2, so the city’s revenue share will be $9.2 million, while retailers keep $3.7 million. And not by accident, your contribution to City Hall won’t show up on your property tax bill.
Chicago’s bag tax took effect Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know. Lauren Zumbach
As of Wednesday, Chicago is nudging shoppers to BYOB — bring your own bag, that is.
A checkout tax of 7 cents per bag will be added at all Chicago retailers, the city’s latest attempt to cut down on the use of disposable bags, typically provided for free at checkout, which often end up in landfills.
…
As of Wednesday, Chicago is nudging shoppers to BYOB — bring your own bag, that is.
A checkout tax of 7 cents per bag will be added at all Chicago retailers, the city’s latest attempt to cut down on the use of disposable bags, typically provided for free at checkout, which often end up in landfills.
… (Lauren Zumbach)
In their zeal to avoid raising property taxes, it seems the people we’ve elected have been imposing new taxes wherever their gaze lands. Chicago’s water and sewer service tax is expected to generate $56 million in 2017. In recent years, the city has added a cable tax and a 911 phone tax and an assortment of new or higher fees. Beginning July 1, Cook County residents will pay an outrageous penny-an-ounce sweetened beverage tax; it’s expected to pull in $221 million a year. Just wait till you see how much that adds to your grocery bill.
That beverage tax is a money grab disguised as a public health initiative. The tax doesn’t apply only to sugary sodas but to artificially sweetened drinks such as diet cola or iced tea — not that it’s Cook County’s business what we drink, anyway. A better idea is for county government to stop consuming so many of our tax dollars. Cut the cost of government — several commissioners have good suggestions — instead of taxing beverages to pay for all that spending.
New Chicago tax leaves shoppers holding the bag Robert Channick and Corilyn Shropshire
The classic checkout question — paper or plastic — will soon pose a new dilemma for cost-conscious Chicago shoppers, who face a new tax on either choice.
Beginning Jan. 1, a checkout tax of 7 cents per bag will be added at all Chicago retailers — from massive chain stores to mom-and-pops — in the…
The classic checkout question — paper or plastic — will soon pose a new dilemma for cost-conscious Chicago shoppers, who face a new tax on either choice.
Beginning Jan. 1, a checkout tax of 7 cents per bag will be added at all Chicago retailers — from massive chain stores to mom-and-pops — in the…
(Robert Channick and Corilyn Shropshire)
But we’re having a hard time working up a lather over the grocery bag tax. That’s because it’s a fairly painless charge that we have reason to hope will actually encourage consumers to go green. In suburban Washington, D.C., a 5-cent bag tax quickly cut usage by about half.
Unlike with cigarette or beverage taxes, consumers can easily change their behavior to avoid paying the bag tax altogether. Reusable bags are cheap — they’re a hot promotional giveaway item these days, too — so it’s easy to keep a stash in your car and only slightly harder to remember to take them inside. It’s a minor lifestyle change that can make a major change: a cleaner, greener Chicago.
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