The voting takes place today for whether or not New York City will have to pay a carryout bag fee for plastic bags. The rate will be 5 cents a bag which isn’t much at all. It would take 20 bags to hit a dollar mark. It’s looking more & more like this will be a guaranteed thing to happen and will be effective next week on Wednesday, February 15th.
I highly approve of this and advocate for it myself. Plastic in general causes much of the world’s current waste problem and the best, next solution is to abolish its use entirely. Plastic is not disposable! Furthermore, people who label plastic as disposable are exploiting the environment long-term for short-term personal profit.
“Most bags end up in landfills, where they take thousands of years to decompose. Those that don’t end up stuck in trees and bushes, clogging storm drains, and littering beaches.”
– NYC.gov
I read into it a bit because I wondered if this was a city tax but it’s not. The fees are not going to the city but to the business owners directly. The state will not benefit from this fee — the environment will. Participants of government-aid related programs will go unaffected by the carryout bag fees.
The proposed fee will, hopefully, discourage New Yorkers from buying plastic bags and encourage them to use reusable ones instead.
Free reusable bags will be given away along with information regarding plastic bag concerns at the following dates, times, and locations:*
2.7.17
Turning Point Brooklyn from 2pm-4pm
5220 4th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11220
Their website is http://www.tpbk.com/
2.8.17
Associated Supermarket from 11am-1pm
1888 Fulton Street
Brooklyn, NY 11233
They can be contacted at 718.778.8665
2.8.17
Key Food from 2:30pm-4:30pm
1232 Nostrand Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11225
They can be contacted at 718.856.5058
2.9.17
C-Town Supermarkets from 2:30pm-4:30pm
108-79 Roosevelt Avenue
Corona, NY 11368
They can be contacted at 718.424.2622
2.9.17
Great Wall Supermarket from 11am-1pm
59-16 99th Street
Corona, NY 11368
They can be contacted at 718.271.1888
2.10.17
Associated Supermarket from 4pm-5pm
301 Marcus Garvey Boulevard
Brooklyn, NY 11221
No contact information found.
2.10.17
Walgreens from 11am-1pm
2817 Third Avenue
Bronx, NY 10455
They can be contacted at 718.292.8271
2.14.17
Western Beef from 4pm-5pm
994 Myrtle Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11206
No contact information found.
* Please note that some of the Reusable Bag Giveaway events reflect today’s event and future events only. Past events are not listed.
Alyssa Perez 