The "last word" on bag taxes...

1. The 5 cent tax on shopping bags "for food purchases" is confusing to some, see "D.C. bags wasteful shopping habit with tax on paper and plastic" from the Washington Post (also "D.C. shoppers opt for roughing it over paying 5-cent tax," as well as "Washington D.C.'s Bag Tax Frustrates Many Store Owners" from the Wall Street Journal.

But it didn't have to be confusing. It should be charged for all bags, not just for food purchases.

The point is to get us to be more environmentally conscious, because...

2. Yesterday's Baltimore Sun, in an article on recycling ("Balto. County hopes 'single-stream' will mean more recycling," reports that the Elkridge recycling processing center amalgamates 20 tons of plastic shopping bags per week.

From the article:

Waste Management Recycle America, which runs the Elkridge facility, estimates that collections jump about 30 percent in each municipality that launches single-stream recycling. Increasing the frequency of pickup, handing out recycling bins and adding new items to the list of acceptable materials also increase participation. ...

Maryland began requiring municipalities to recycle in 1988. Residents were throwing away almost 7 pounds of trash a day, enough to build a wall 3 feet wide and 6 feet tall for 4,387 miles, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment. It costs the city $67, for example, to dispose of each ton of waste. In the past four years, the state has met its waste diversion goals, reaching about 44 percent in 2008, the last year data is available, the department said. ...

And the city pays nothing, or even makes money, when it drops off material in Elkridge, depending on what Waste Management can sell it for. Prices, however, are inconsistent. They hit lows in the fall of 2008 and only began recovering in the summer, leaving little for the municipalities until this fall, said David E. Taylor, a district manager for the company. ...

And the city pays nothing, or even makes money, when it drops off material in Elkridge, depending on what Waste Management can sell it for. Prices, however, are inconsistent. They hit lows in the fall of 2008 and only began recovering in the summer, leaving little for the municipalities until this fall, said David E. Taylor, a district manager for the company.

For example, prices for aluminum, which goes to Anheuser-Busch to become new beer cans, dropped to $1,400 a ton before recovering to $2,400. Plastic bottles that go to Coca-Cola to become new bottles dropped to $100 a ton and later rose to about $900. And newspaper, which comprises 70 percent of the recycled material and becomes new newsprint, was bringing in nothing and is now commanding closer to $95 a ton.

The facility also sells 20 tons of plastic bags a week, though officials would rather residents not package material in them.

That's a lot of bags...