Nickel and diming means you pay 15 cents per paper bag

Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying nothing is certain except death and taxes.

(He was talking about the viability of the new Constitution.)

He overlooked the government’s ability to give loyal citizens a not-so-royal hemorrhoid.

It was not so long ago our august City Council — along with other governmental bodies — put plastic bags in their sights (because that’s a much softer target than, say, homelessness). To protect the environment, single-use plastic bags had to go. 

In fact, plastic bags are a problem, and we had a solution: Returning to the brown paper bags we had used for generations. 

To repeat, we used brown paper bags for generations and they were free to consumers. Unlike plastic, paper is recyclable, and biodegradable. 

We went along with City Council with hardly a whimper because banning plastic was a good cause and the cost and inconvenience was slight.

Guess what?

City Council has just authorized a 15-cent charge on every paper bag anyone gives you — supermarket, corner grocery, drug store, pet store, restaurant take-home bag. Call it chaos Christmas.

You were a good citizen, you went along with environmental protection, and now you are being punished for it.

Ben Franklin, can you hear me?

As a quick aside, I will not cover here City Council’s well-intended, but nevertheless stupid (and quasi-racist) ban on face or ski masks in most public settings. This passed just as cold weather arrived.

I also won’t deal with the state legislature making porch piracy a crime, when the D.A. in the state’s largest city (hint: Philadelphia) refuses to prosecute retail theft of items with less value than a Honda.) 

Back to the charge for paper bags.

Who benefits from this? (Hint: not you, the consumer.)

The vendor who provides the paper bag, that’s who benefits.

The bill’s sponsor, Councilman Mark Squilla, can’t deny that, but he has a slightly different take on the issue, and he provided me with a long, detailed reply to my questions.

The goal, he tells me, is to force incentivize you into bringing your own bag. (Hint: Like in Europe, and other backward regions.) 

While paper is better than plastic, he says, it has “a negative environmental impact. Paper production includes deforestation, the use of enormous amounts of energy and water as well as air pollution and waste products.”

Name a product that does not use energy and create some kind of pollution. We’re even worried about cow farts.

“Paper accounts for about 26% of total waste in landfills. Paper bags are imminently recyclable as long as we have a reliable recycling program (which is a different issue),” Squilla concludes.

Quite a mouthful. Let me deconstruct.

Deforestation is easily cured by planting more trees, which is beneficial to the environment because trees suck up carbon dioxide and replace it with oxygen. Trees are a renewable, sustainable resource.

Since paper bags are recyclable, why are so many in landfills? Because we don’t have efficient recycling programs, which Squilla admits in an off-hand way. How about fixing that?

Since about Covid, and coincidental(?) with the plastic bag ban, a large number of retailers — on their own — started charging for the paper bags that had been traditionally free.

Acme did it, followed by Giant, and some others. Staples started charging, as did Macy’s, but not CVS.

To me, charging for what had always been free is theft.

And City Council — representing the poorest major U.S. city — has institutionalized the theft. It’s worse than bad. It is silly.

Squilla says the paper bags aren’t “free” anyway, they are built into the store’s overhead. True, but do you believe for an instant store prices will go down because the bags are no longer free? Of course you don’t. Because they won’t.

The charge, he admits, is a disincentive for consumers, poking them to bring their own bags. 

He said imagine the disincentive if the charge were $1 a bag. (He is not planning that, don’t worry. I think highly of Squilla. We just disagree on this issue.)

How about an incentive — take 15 cents off the bill for each bag the customer brings from home. Wouldn’t that go over better in America’s poorest big city?

This charge will slow things at cash registers and be really hard to enforce on customers who bag their own purchases at the supermarket.

Speaking of enforcement, who gets to do that — cops? The paper bag police?  The Keebler elves?

No, Licenses &  Inspections.

As if they don’t have enough to do.

Center City alone has 2,800 retail businesses. Who’s going to stand near the register watching bags? It’s just silly.

Can you imagine a top quality restaurant charging you 15 cents for a doggie bag after you paid $300 for dinner?

What happens if the retailer says F U to the 15-cent charge?

They face a $150 fine, but Squilla admits there will be little enforcement. 

He’s counting on “go along to get along,” and good citizenship for the fee to be levied.

Me? I think consumers will feel they were conned on plastic bags, and are tired of being nickeled and dimed to death by the Nanny State.