At the beginning of the year, any businesses selling food in the District of Columbia were required to start charging five cents for each plastic bag they gave to customers. The preliminary result of that tax on consumer’s behavior has been nothing less than astonishing. According to the Washington Post, “the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue estimated that food and grocery establishments gave out about 3 million bags in January. Before the bag tax took effect Jan. 1, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer had said that about 22.5 million bags were being issued each month in 2009.” That’s a reduction of around 85% or nearly 20 million plastic bags a month! Not only does that cut down on the oil resources needed to make so many bags but also reduces the amount of bags that could end up as trash in the rivers around D.C. The tax also raised $150,000 for the newly created Anacostia River Cleanup Fund, which will spend the money on various environmental projects.

I think it’s the sense of having to pay for something that you never had to pay for before that is the real motivation behind the reduction in plastic bag use. It’s a minor inconvenience at first and, like any change in behavior, it takes some getting used to. After several months, though, it’s no longer a surprise and life is going on just fine without all those plastic bags. I’ve personally not paid for a bag since the tax was instituted, bringing my reusable bags with me shopping and sometimes just foregoing a bag I’d normally use. Changing behavior – while incredibly difficult – can lead to real results. I’ve put wrapped take out food in a compartment of my attache case and carried home wrapped burritos in my hand – a little odd for sure but for a cheapskate like me, worth the five cents saved. I like taxes just about as much as I like the swine flu. But the beauty of a tax like this is that I can easily get out of paying it by changing my behavior. On the other hand, I’m stuck and cannot get out of paying for a rise in, say, income taxes. Now let’s apply that logic and the behavior changes that took place with a tax to another area. Imagine what would happen with even a small national tax on gasoline…

- Justin Manger

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