Fairbanks and North Pole, Alaska, tax disposable plastic bags

FAIRBANKS, ALASKA (Sept. 14, 12:30 p.m. ET) -- If Santa Claus is going to be doing any shopping at the North Pole in 2010, he is going to have to bring his own reusable bags, or bring some extra money to defray the cost of the plastic carryout bags that he will have to buy at retail stores when he shops.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough in Alaska — which includes the city of Fairbanks and the unincorporated community of North Pole — has voted to place a 5-cent tax on disposable plastic carryout bags, beginning Jan. 1, at retailers with $1 million or more of annual sales.

The only other U.S. city that has approved a tax on plastic bags is Washington, D.C., which in June approved a 5-cent tax on all paper and plastic carryout bags at grocery stores, drug stores, and retail food establishments that will go into effect in January.

There is also a 5-cent tax on plastic bags in Toronto. Seattle voters in August rejected a proposed 20-cent tax on plastic and paper carryout bags.

The 5-cent tax in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, will apply to most large grocery stores, discount chains and bookstores in the borough, which has an estimated population of 100,000 and is similar in size to New Jersey.

The bill was introduced and passed Sept. 10. Assembly member and presiding officer Nadine Winters, who proposed the bill, said the goal of the tax is to reduce waste and create “an economic incentive for customers to use reusable shopping bags.”

Retailers will be able to keep 3 percent of the funds they collect. The remainder of the money will be used by the borough for recycling programs.

There are 10 plastic carryout bag bans in the U.S., five of which were enacted this year, including one in Edmonds, Wash., a town of 40,000 located on the Puget Sound northwest of Seattle. The Edmonds ban, approved July 28, will go into effect Aug. 27, 2010.

In addition to Edmonds, two small Alaskan towns, three counties on the Outer Banks in North Carolina and Palo Alto, Calif., also passed plastic bag bans this year.

The ban in Hooper Bay, Alaska, went into effect in August, the ban in the North Carolina counties of Hyde, Dare and Currituck went into effect Sept. 1 and the Palo Alto ban goes into effect Sept. 18

The plastic bag ban in Bethel, Alaska, goes into effect Sept. 1, 2010.

Westport, Conn., Maui County in Hawaii and the California cities of San Francisco, Fairfax and Malibu also have bans on plastic carryout bags. A ban on plastic bags in Manhattan Beach, Calif., that covered 217 stores and restaurants was overturned in court, but the city plans to conduct an environmental impact report, as required under the California Environmental Quality Act, in an effort to get an okay to implement the ban.

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