Consumers Could Be Charged for Plastic and Paper Bags
A 10-cent fee on plastic and paper shopping bags would bring in more than $20 million and cut the use of the environmentally harmful bags dramatically, the Hawaii Sierra Club says.
Sierra Club director Robert Harris told the House Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection Thursday that a fee 鈥 which would be charged to consumers at the checkout counter 鈥 has worked to reduce plastic bag use in other areas.
Harris was among those testifying on . Environmental groups, including and , as well as government department heads and even major supermarkets, testified in support of the bill.
鈥淭imes and Safeway want to proactively address the issue of single-use bags,鈥 Melissa Pavlicek, who represents the supermarkets, told lawmakers. She said the stores are concerned about the environmental impact of the bags.
The neighbor islands have already imposed bans on single-use plastic bags, which can drift out of landfills and into the ocean, as well as litter the ground. The bags can harm sea turtles and other marine animals, and are rarely recycled, according to environmental groups.
A statewide law would not supersede county ordinances, but would mean that residents on Kauai, Maui and the Big Island would pay fees on paper bags, which are still in use.
Rep. Denny Coffman, who chairs the committee and sponsored the bill, said that he expected to see a drastic reduction in the use of single-use bags in three years if the legislation passes.
If bag use isn鈥檛 reduced 75 percent by July 2016, the fee would go up to 25 cents per bag, under the proposal.
By the Sierra Club鈥檚 calculations, at 10-cents-a-bag the state would collect $24.6 million with a 50 percent reduction in bag use. But the revenue which would decline to about $5 million if 90 percent of consumers stopped using them.
Harris pointed to the example of where a fee of 5 cents per bag resulted in a 75 percent to 90 percent reduction in use.
But Guy Kaulukukui, deputy director of the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, which strongly supports the legislation, isn鈥檛 so sure.
鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to imagine that a 10 cents fee would reduce use by half,鈥 he told Civil Beat. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 much more difficult to change consumer behavior.鈥
Civil Beat readers also expressed doubt about how much the fee would reduce use.
Commenting on a Facebook , Kahi Pacarro said, “charge a buck. Ten cents is too little.”
Blaine Fergerstorm also said that stores should charge one dollar per bag.
“After you bought 60 of them, you would start to bring them to the store with you,” he wrote.
Under the legislation, DLNR would get money collected from the fees to support its watershed protection program. Kaulukukui said officials are hoping the fees will bring in about $11 million a year.
In addition to funding DLNR, the bill also would divert a substantial amount of the revenue to grocery stores to offset higher costs from implementing the program. Twenty percent of the revenue from the proposed fees would go to the grocery stores to offset this cost during the first year, and 10 percent the second year and every year thereafter.
The plastic bag bans on the neighbor islands have resulted in an unintended consequence 鈥 use of more expensive paper bags has gone up, costing stores thousands of dollars, according to testimony Thursday.
The fees going to the grocery stores are a point of contention with Rep. Sharon Har, vice chair of the committee, who grilled representatives of local stores during the hearing.
Currently, the price of bags are already folded into consumer costs. She said that making the consumer pay a fee on top of this, when stores can鈥檛 say whether the overall cost for consumers would go down, was unfair.
Har told Civil Beat that the grocery stores were only on board to collect the revenue from the bag fees.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e not on the same page,” she said. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 care about the environment.鈥
Pavlicek told Har at the hearing that the stores needed the money to offset the increased cost of paper bags.
Har told Civil Beat that she supported the bill’s intent but didn’t think that making consumers pay was the right way to proceed.
鈥淚t鈥檚 trying to change people鈥檚 behavior by taxing them and I don鈥檛 think that is the way to go about it,鈥 she said. 鈥淚f you look at the demographics, it鈥檚 the elderly that are going to be hurt. The younger people are already socialized to not use plastic bags, but the older people are used to getting plastic bags.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 not fair to do that to our elderly that are on a fixed income.鈥
She said that instead of imposing fees it would be better to offer incentives, though she couldn’t say how that would work.
The bill is one of three that the Legislature is hearing this session.
HB 2260 was deferred Thursday but is expected to come up before the committee again.
Rep. Sharon Har grills supermarket rep on bag fees:
Civil Beat’s informal Facebook showed strong support for the fees at the time of publication:
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