Bag Fee to Reduce Litter, Clean Up River

Website:

http://environment.about.com/b/2010/01/05/bag-fee-to-reduce-litter-clean-up-river-in-washington-dc.htm

Summary:

The shopping stores around Washington are charging the shoppers 5 cents a plastic or paper bag they take from the stores, restaurants, etc, the bags got to be recyclable. The people want to reduce the number of plastic/paper bags so they won’t end up in landfills or litter the bags in rivers/oceans or along the roads of communities, so it won’t be dirty. Every cent they get from the shoppers buying the bags will go to the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Fund. Washington people want to eliminate the disposable bags every year. Another thing is that some businesses are offering 5 cent credit to the shoppers to bring their own bag, so the shoppers would save the 5 cent fee and earn it just by carrying a reusable bag around. In other places they are charging a fee for disposable bags. They want to save money by cleaning up the environment by not using plastic or paper bags.

Opinion:

What I think is if the shoppers keep on buying the bags since some of them are reusable, people won’t buy the plastic bags because they can keep on reusing the other bags, and so the money for buying the bags won’t go towards the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Fund. What I think they should do is just put a little bit of money towards it instead of the stores, restaurants, etc making them pay for a bag. I do think it is a good way that people is using reusable bags because some people in the world are taking plastic and paper bags and throwing it in the river/ocean and making look dirty.