The Seattle City Council approved an ordinance that requires grocery stores to charge 20 Cents for each plastic or paper bag. Their thinking is that making people pay for the bags will result in a lot more re-use. Take last week’s bags back and fill ‘em up again.
When the idea was proposed most groceries immediately began offering durable bags for sale. They can be canvas or some form of nylon reinforced frog skin. They popped up all over.
The new bag ordinance is universally panned by all the grocery chains as well as the plastic grocery bag industry. They ran radio ads suggesting people chain themselves to grocery carts in protest. Stores ran petition campaigns (sponsored by the plastics industry) to try and get a billion signatures to defeat the ordinance.
Now, in grocery stores all over the Greater Newcastle Metropolitan area there are big displays right at the door showing reusable bags for sale. It costs about 3 cents for a 12 year old barefoot worker in some remote third world sweatshop to make one. Safeway sells them for a dollar. And they have the Safeway logo all over it. The other stores have their own logos.
So now we have yet another way to pay a business to advertise their name. But it gets better.
The ordinance is only in Seattle. That’s a minor Newcastle suburb somewhere on the other side of Lake Washington. So, if a person in Newcastle wants to pay 20 cents for a grocery bag he/she has to drive to Seattle.
And soon there will be a toll on the SR 520 Bridge. We don’t know how much yet. Could be $2 or $20, depending on some alien formula concocted in the basement of the State Department of Transportation. We call them WSDOT pronounced “wash-dot” sort of cutsie like somebody likes them.
Paying the toll will be easy, just like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and Valley Freeway – just get my $49.95 fake transponder and you can cross as many times as you like until you get caught. Wash-dot calls them “Good To Go” passes but I call it a gold mine.
Christine only has a couple of years before she drives her bulldozer up from Olympia and starts to bash down the Alaska Way Viaduct. Greg, the Seattle Mayor, meanwhile, is proposing car free days in Seattle. That pretty much addresses the issue.
So the scenario is this: You want to get Seattle certified groceries because the local Newcastle Safeway is just not quite as cool as it should be. So you get into the Smart Car and fire that puppy up. That’s the car that’s as long as it is wide so you can park any old way you want. And it gets over 100 MPG. Maybe. Then attach my really cool fake transponder to the windshield and head for the Pike Place Market. The mayor greets you at the Seattle side of the SR 520 Bridge and informs you that it’s a car free day in Seattle. Way cool. Get out and unleash the pin striped baby jogger from the roof of the Smart Car. You don’t have a baby, you use it for cargo. Head for the nearest trendy Seattle food-o-rama. Maybe it’s called Che-Grub or something. Buy a $20 rip-stop nylon bag with the store logo all over it. Get some really fresh bananas that just flew in from Bongo Bongo. And maybe some pinto bean granola and Patagonian Toothfish steaks. Check out and head back to the Smart Car and thence back to Newcastle. Invite the neighbors. Oops, forgot the wine. Dang, the Smart Car is out of gas. So you go downstairs through the library (because you bought one of the 80 condo units above the library) and cross Newcastle Way to Safeway for some gourmet wine in a designer box. And buy a Safeway bag for $1.
Here’s the total: $108.45 for a catfish sandwich and splash of wine. Oh, and a two week old banana. But living in Newcastle requires you to be cool so money is no object. Did you remember to invite Greg, the Mayor? I think he lives in Newcastle too.
Back at the fish fry at your place above the library you get into endless and pointless discussions over who should be elected Governor. Christine or Dino? I’d say vote for Christine, because I really want to see her knock down the Viaduct. Hope she rolls in on a car free day.
Al
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