Seattle voters overturn fee on plastic bags

Considered one of the greenest cities in the U.S., Seattle found that a 20-cent fee on plastic bags is one green measure the residents can live without.  With mailed-in votes still being counted, city voters apparently rejected the fee by a double-digit percentage on Tuesday.  The vote was a referendum on overturning a city-passed ordinance which had not yet gone into effect.

Aimed at cutting down on pollution and waste by encouraging reusable bags, the fee ran into the predictable opponent: the plastic bag manufacturers.  The Associated Press credits the industry with having “bankrolled” the referendum, adding that “plastic bag makers have lobbied hard to defeat the fee, outspending opponents about 15 to 1.”  It might not have helped that Seattle’s nationally-recognized “green” mayor, Greg Nickles, is currently unpopular in the city (you have to get the snow off the streets), and was struggling on the same ballot, hoping to advance to a run-off.

It’ll take some time to analyze why the fee was defeated, although taxes don’t ever tend to generate much support, and the heavy involvement of an industry on the defensive must have had an effect.  Is this a good issue for cities to tackle, or will public awareness and market forces be able to solve the problem?  Throughout the U.S., the plastic bag fee is getting a lot of interest, but not a lot of traction in the form of adopted policies.

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