Students on tight budgets may need to purchase reusable bags or use paper bags at the checkout lane if state lawmakers pass a proposal to create a 15-cent fee for plastic bags.
An assembly committee approved the initiative, which would create a fee for shoppers at grocery chains and large drug stores if they do not meet bag-diversion requirements.
Paul Glanting, a fourth-year English student, said he believes the initiative could be effective in changing students’ behaviors regarding the environment.
“The reason we are at the point we are at environmentally is because we don’t think twice about the kind of bags we use,” Glanting said.
He said the extra fee will no doubt force students to reconsider using plastic bags simply because most college students are on strict budgets.
Plastic bags have recently been recognized as one of the most hazardous waste products and pose a great threat to marine life, as many end up in the ocean through storm-drain runoff.
Hani Rashid, a fourth-year psychobiology student, said he was not sure how much the fee would affect students, but he supports efforts for stores and consumers to be more environmentally friendly.
“I don’t know if it would change students, but I think it could be a step in the right direction,” Rashid said.
Though students for the most part seem to support the new proposal, the effect of the tax on local businesses has provoked major lobbying against the legislation, particularly from firms representing the major grocery chains.
Lobbyists against the fee proposal argue that legislation passed last year requiring grocery and large drug stores to carry in-store receptacles for people to recycle their plastic bags has not had a chance to work, nor have its effects been properly gauged.
In an interview with the Ventura County Star, Louis Brown, a lobbyist for the California Grocers Association, said the old program is good enough.
“Most of our members will tell you they believe the program is successful,” Brown said.
But Ada Arriaga, a manager at the Westwood Whole Foods, said the fee would not negatively affect business.
“We already don’t offer (plastic bags), and after April 22, we won’t even carry them, besides the plastic bags people put their vegetables in,” Arriaga said.
Arriaga also said that student shoppers seem to be happy that the company considers the environment by moving away from the use of plastic bags.