Main difference between plastic bags and several of your other examples are the others are PET and are highly recyclable relative to things like plastic bags.
While I don’t disagree with taxing production of these products to price the externalized costs in to them, I imagine they would still want a bag fee.
No grocery store wants to be the first to start charging for plastic bags, so they’re just going to handle it like any other increase in their costs… price it in to margins on their products. (When fuel taxes go up the grocery store doesn’t start charging a transportation fee or something, right?) Now we have a situation where no individual customer’s choice will directly benefit them, and in fact the rational choice would probably be to keep using the plastic bags since you’re paying for them already!
By exposing the cost directly to the consumer instead of having it lost in the middle of all the other price increases we’ve become accustomed to, they’re at least _aware_ of how their behavior is influencing costs and can take clear, simple actions to avoid those costs on an individual basis.
While I don’t disagree with taxing production of these products to price the externalized costs in to them, I imagine they would still want a bag fee.
No grocery store wants to be the first to start charging for plastic bags, so they’re just going to handle it like any other increase in their costs… price it in to margins on their products. (When fuel taxes go up the grocery store doesn’t start charging a transportation fee or something, right?) Now we have a situation where no individual customer’s choice will directly benefit them, and in fact the rational choice would probably be to keep using the plastic bags since you’re paying for them already!
By exposing the cost directly to the consumer instead of having it lost in the middle of all the other price increases we’ve become accustomed to, they’re at least _aware_ of how their behavior is influencing costs and can take clear, simple actions to avoid those costs on an individual basis.