Carr said anti-bag-tax ads on Baltimore radio stations sapped support in the state’s biggest urban area.
Mark Daniels, the vice president in charge of environmental policy for bagmaker Hilex Poly, said Montgomery officials “obviously were not informed with regard to the environmental attributes of plastic bags.”
His company uses recycled bags to make many of their new ones, he said, and people reuse bags to carry their lunches, pick up after dogs or to line their bathroom trash cans.
“The legislators in Maryland understood the facts a lot more than the folks” in Montgomery, Daniels said.
In the District, the tax has been highly effective, said D.C. Council member Tommy Wells, who consulted with Montgomery officials and testified for the county’s tax. City officials say they have been told by major supermarkets that bag use is down by more than 60 percent.
Montgomery, Wells (D-Ward 6) said in a statement, “took a smart approach, built the political will, and worked with a coalition of businesses and environmental leaders to achieve today’s success.”
Walking in Rockville with a plastic bag, Gina Parr, a marketing director, said she’s following her children’s lead and trying to be greener. But, she said, “we have enough taxes. We’re overtaxed here. It’s nickel-and-diming.”
“I think people can be responsible. . . . My kids are more environmentally aware. I’m learning, too,” she said. Still, “my husband hasn’t had a raise in two years. . . . We haven’t gotten raises. Yet they keep wanting more.”
But Julia Lee, who does marketing for a nonprofit group and lives in Silver Spring, said she supports the tax and is partial to reusables. “I always use my little bags,” she said. “It’s better for the environment. It does put the consumer to work a little bit. . . . But I think, in the end, that’s where everybody’s moving anyway.”
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