Borough Assembly member introduces plastic bag ordinances

PALMER — A loosely-knit group organized last fall had a goal of drawing attention to and educating Valley residents on the hazards of single-use plastic bags. Now they have the attention of the Mat-Su Borough Assembly.

At the body’s Tuesday meeting, Assemblywoman Barbara Doty introduced Ordinance 17-099—“An ordinance…to establish a program designed to reduce the use of plastic bags by imposing an excise tax for plastic carryout bags on large retailers.”

The ordinance would charge a 10-cent plastic shopping bag excise tax to retailers with annual sales of more than $1 million. The legislation has multiple intentions. One is to reduce the volume of trash that ends up at the borough’s Central Landfill. Another reason, Doty cited, is to reduce the amount of litter, as the bags are easily and often blown around Valley roads and fields often ending up stuck in trees, scrub and tall grasses. Several Mat-Su organizations and individuals have lost reindeer and caribou because the animals ingest the bags while foraging (see separate story).

As the ordinance stands now, the proposed excise tax is aimed at the Valley’s largest retailers. As written, the tax would not be a direct charge to the end-user—consumers. An accompanying memorandum with the ordinance stated that because the tax is an excise tax, no sale or transfer of goods or services need occur for the tax to apply. The tax would apply anytime a retailer, as defined in the ordinance, provides a plastic bag to another regardless if there is a sale involved. Retailers filing timely tax returns would be permitted to retain 20 percent of the collected tax, the memo stated.

The memorandum stated that estimated costs of collecting the tax comes in at approximately $60,000 which would pay for a half-time borough position. The tax would be collected at the wholesale level and collected quarterly. According to the document, at 21 million bags annually, the tax would bring in approximately $2.1 million in revenue annually. That amount is anticipated to drop with the expected drop in plastic bag use by consumers. The memorandum states the generated revenues are intended to help fund recycling programs and promote recycling education in the Mat-Su.

In submitting the ordinance, Doty included examples from US cities where such a tax was approved. One of those included the 7-cent per bag tax approved in Chicago on Feb. 1, 2017. That tax included both plastic and paper bags. According to a recent study conducted by New York University and the University of Chicago’s Energy and Environmental Lab, the number of included bags used by customers fell 42 percent in the first month following implementation.

According to Patti Fisher, a member of the Mat-Su Zero Waste Coalition’s Plastic Bag Committee, the group is committed to working with retailers to encourage this tax be passed on to customers in the form of a bag fee. Fisher stated that method exists in many cities across the country.

“How many times have you been handed a bag with two items in it,” the committee posted on its Facebook social media page. “We are just programmed to take the bag without thinking. Maybe this will make people think twice about the garbage they are creating.”

Comments on the group’s Facebook page have been mixed, but mostly against such a plan.

Included among them is having big-box and grocery stores that fall under the ordinance offer a customer refund for those brining their own bags while shopping. Others cry the tax is an example of “the nanny state rearing its ugly head”.

An Aug. 1 post stated the committee “…worked very hard drafting an ordinance but in the end the lawyers make the final draft. Let’s just say it is not perfect and we are going to try to add a couple of amendments to it on Aug. 15 after it is read.”

No municipalities in Alaska implement a tax but several have banned them. Included are Cordova, Bethel and Hooper Bay.

The assembly is expected to hold the first public hearing on the proposed ordinance at its Aug. 15 regular meeting.

Contact reporter Chris Ford at 352-2270 or chris.ford@frontiersman.com