Good! If it were my store, I probably wouldn't carry them, either.

2 things

1 it cant be that hard to set up a website so citizens can buy them directly from he ware house. The warehouse has to ship them to the srores, mailing directly to the public cant be that much more expensive. Even if it is the company can ten demand a higher share of the proceedes

2 if citizens now have to pay directly for trash removal then any of their taxes which went to funding the community's trash service should be reimbursed

This is one of the many reasons I caution against personal schizophrenia (for consistent thought), apathy and ignorance in civic affairs.

This will be remarketed as "environmentally sensitive", and the fee simply added to waste collection taxes.

It's amazing how many make-work programs there are out there, celebrated because they let American workers buy things they don't need, with credit they don't have, made in China.

Oh, wait - I forgot something.

Do you know what happens when people are forced to pay to throw trash out?

People who can't spare the $$ or think it's stupid just throw trash wherever they can.

Nice move, nitwits!

This is why I come to this blog...it reminds me that I am NOT the last sane person on earth.

Public policy programs are to often expected to work on a wish, a prayer, and mindless generosity.

How disconnected must its originators be from reality, to think they'd come up with a great plan for waste disposal?

But how much more foolish the tax payers and citizens of these places, who continue to mindlessly vote the same idiots into office again and again?

People GET the government they DESERVE in a Democracy, fine and dandy, just a shame our kids sometimes end up paying for it too.

People who can't spare the $$ or think it's stupid just throw trash wherever they can.

Huh? Is the city just supposed to provide that service out of the general fund without regard to the amount of waste citizens make? Every city I've lever lived charges to pick up garbage. Here in SF you get three bins - trash, recycling, compost/yard waste - in three possible sizes. Your rate depends upon the size of the bins you use.

It's dumb not give stores a cut for distributing bags. But what's wrong with this system otherwise? The more trash you make, the more you pay. As it should be. People who throw trash wherever they can because of this system are assholes.

I'm not sure why this is supposed to be interesting.

It's not a dumb system - it means precisely that you pay for the amount of trash you generate, which is only fair. And $2 for a garbage bag really is not going to break the bank - we have the same system and pay a good bit more. This has the additional side effect of encouraging recycling.

Of course, lujlp knows well that any previous tax or fee for garbage collection is almost certainly still in force. Taxes go up, never down.

it means precisely that you pay for the amount of trash you generate, which is only fair.

That's not the model under which most public works are paid for. You pay for public schools even if you have no kids or if your kids attend private schools. You pay for public roads even if you have no car, and you pay the same if you own one car while others own two. A crime-free neighborhood pays the same for police as a crime-ridden neighborhood. Why should garbage disposal be the one case in which your fee is reckoned according to use. That's a bit unfair for, say, people without kids or a car, who happen to produce lots of trash.

That's a bit unfair for, say, people without kids or a car, who happen to produce lots of trash

Pobrecitos.

Roads are infrastructure. Most people use them; even those who have no cars are probably use busses or get mail or ride their bikes on them. Educated people are necessary for our society to function in the future. These things are social goods. Waste is a problem, and people should pay for what they create.

"Waste is a problem, and people should pay for what they create."

I have a helluva time getting rid of cardboard. It's tough to buy anything without packaging. How much of the bill should go to the producer?

My issue is not with the fee - even though the contents of a trash bag cost widely varying amounts to dispose. It is that this will simply be added to whatever the townsfolk are being charged today in taxes.

Nearby, in Augusta, GA, the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) is often billed as the perfect solution. It's not. It's camouflage for misallocation of resources, just like this scheme. Roads benefit everybody? So does trash collection!

Then, there is plain tax fraud, committed by elected or appointed people on the populace. Aiken County, SC spent $24 million on administrative offices, after claiming the tired but old mantra, "for the children". Since the "Education Lottery" was started - like many other locations, State spending on education through taxation went away as they count on lottery income.

If you can hold the public's attention for one week, you have it made.

Works that way in Korea. You can buy various size of GREEN plastic garbage bags and that money goes towards the garbage fees. But Radwaste is right to a degree - there are garbage crimes. People will put their garbage into any old bag to be tossed out. People learn to do guerrilla garbage hauling.... Finding that spot that you can just dump your stuff that it will not be guessed to be yours. Public wastebin get abused as people to save that dollar will fill the bins with their garbage. The consequences of that is the city starts taking away public waste bin and things from there start to get dirty. True some people will police the garbage. That old Adjumma (older Korean lady) who lives in a giant apartment complex will track you down and return your not properly packed garbage then proceed to nag and scold you in a language you do not understand for a few minutes. BUT overall the garbage abuses do not get looked into and then things START to get dirty....I mean it Garbage heaps start to form everywhere.... True it gets picked up in a day or two but it just makes the neighborhood look like crap....

But I do find it does have its benefits....People do recycle more and they do reduce their waste a bit, because that 1 dollar or more can start to build up if you are paying for a bag every few days.

Also why does the store just not add a few dimes to the price under some basic fee - like shipping, handling, etc. Thus they can still sell it. If the customer complains of the cost just tell them they have the choice to buy or not buy....

This is stupid, but to be expected in New Hampshire. They don't have much in the way of taxes (a good thing) but they tend to come up with bone-headed shit (bad).

Here in Southington, there are two companies authorized to contract with for waste removal, or you can bring it to the dump yourself.

The companies have various size containers, and you pay quarterly. I pay $69/qtr for removal. Considering that taxes are significantly lower in this town (the mill rate is 2/3 what it was in Bristol), I'll pay the $280 a year for trash removal.

Roads benefit everybody? So does trash collection!

Exactly.

"Free" trash collection is one reason our cities don't look like American versions of Calcutta.

And I buy the double taxation argument too.

Even with al the local development around me I still technically live in a rural area.

The local trash company charges $30/month/trash can

I pay $8 every other month and take one trailer full of trash to the dump and drop off recyclables at a free local center

One thing no one has yet to realize; this is to encourage recycling, right? An unintended consequence is that people will sneak trash into their recyclables and you end up with "dirty" recycling that will either be rejected or sold for less, since picking through the waste requires paid labor. Happens at hubby's work all the time. Companies have to pay for their trash disposal so they try to sneak it into their recyclables instead. People will more than likely do the same, just to a higher degree.

So let's solve the problem by dirtying up the recycling!!! I love bureaucratic solutions.

I understand that reasoning for paper products, and possibly glass, but why metal?

Isnt it just melted and as the varios metals settle into their respective layers it skimmed off, and wouldnt that burn off any impurites?

Can't you see it now?

Folks buying a trash compactor and squeezing 100 pounds of trash into a 15 gallon bag! Funny unless you have to lift it.

If I ran a store and was made to carry these bags, I would post a sign explaining what this nonsense was really costing my customers. The lost income from setting aside shelf space, stocking time, reordering time, changes to accounting and tracking software, extra checks to write and postage. These are the ones that come to mind right now. I'm sure I missed something. On this sign I would total these costs and explain at the bottom this is the percentage we need to raise prices to cover these costs.

All this does is create more state jobs. Someone has to track and monitor this program. Think they'll work for free out of the goodness of their hearts? Zero Profit, my sweet Aunt Fanny. It's always about money. If that didn't spur customers into action against the "genius" officials who came up with this scam, err scheme then it's time to give up and move to the woods.

This is as annoying as having to pay extra at stores if I use cash so others can use their credit cards.

"I understand that reasoning for paper products, and possibly glass, but why metal?"

It's not so much a sanitary issue. The "dirty" refers to larger trash being present in the recycling that needs to be removed. If you can promise a less than 3% trash margin, you're reliable. The recycling is still filthy as all hell with residues, but the customer purchasing materials doesn't want to find that they've paid for 700 pounds of trash in a delivery when they thought they were buying just glass/paper/metal/plastic. This ruins a recycling company's reputation, it's very important that their material is known to be "clean", or without the trash. A huge cost for recycling companies like my husband's is the labor (pickers) to sort the items and remove the trash.

And as to "clean" paper: you'd be stunned? disgusted? nauseated? to know just how filthy it is. Ever smell a paper mill? Most recycled paper product is made into paperboard, which is what most of your food boxes are made out of. Children's puzzles too.