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"If every household in Seattle uses reusable bags and climate friendly containers, we can cut greenhouse gas generation. With the bag fee alone, we can cut more than 4,000 tons per year. That’s the same as taking 665 cars off the road. This is one more step we can all take to fight global warming in our everyday lives."
--Mayor Greg Nickels
Seattleites use 360 million throwaway paper and plastic shopping bags every year.
- That equals 8,500 tons of greenhouse gases.
- Almost 240 million bags end up in the garbage, almost 4 percent of all residential garbage, by volume.
- Compared to plastic, paper bags have four times the environmental impact — from logging, manufacture, distribution and disposal.
To encourage shoppers to switch to reusable bags and cut down on waste, Mayor Greg Nickels and City Council President Richard Conlin are proposing a 20-cent green fee on disposable shopping bags, both paper and plastic.
The fee would be charged at grocery, drug and convenience stores — the source of almost 75 percent of all bags. It would not apply to bags used inside stores for bulk items; bags for prepared food, such as deli or bakery goods; newspapers; and dry-cleaner bags
Also proposed is a ban on the use of expanded polystyrene (EPS, sometimes called “Styrofoam”) containers and cups in all food service businesses. This includes some of the foam packaging used in grocery stores, such as meat and vegetable trays.
Subject to City Council action expected in June, the fee and ban would begin Jan. 1, 2009.
The proposal also requires all food service businesses to switch from one-time-use, disposable plastic and plastic-coated paper food and beverage containers and utensils to fully compostable and recyclable substitutes by July 1, 2010.
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