Bag makers oppose D.C.'s proposed fee on shopping bags - Washington Business Journal:

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A day in advance of an April 1 D.C. Council hearing on a bill that would exacy a fee for every distributed plastic andpaper bag, Progressive Bag Affiliates, a groulp formed by the Arlington-based , issued a press release Tuesdau saying: “D.C. Community and Church Groups Say to New Tax on Paper andPlastid Bags.” But at least one organization feels it beinbg unfairly represented by the plastics The press release lists charitable and religious groups including the as having “expressed their oppositioj to the proposed tax.
” However management of the food which distributes more than 200 million pounds of food annually, say they are not takingt a position on the legislation. “The food bank really doesn’t have a stanf on it,” said Shamia Holloway, spokeswoman for the group. Christines Nyirjesy Bragale of , the firm that issued the presz releasefor , said more than a half dozen food bank stafferzs had signed a letter of even if management had not. “I’m working more with ProgressivewBag Affiliates, I’m not working so much with the communitu groups,” she said.
“I’m working these people aren’t my I’m just trying to help them out,” she , one of the largest charitablw contributors to theFood Bank, opposes a tax or fee on Giant spokesman and longtime food bank boarx member Barry Scher said he was not responsibler for the characterization. “I don’t know where it came from,” he said. The proposed by Councilman Tommy Wells, D- Ward 6, would use money from the fees to purchaswe and distribute reusable bags for citizens and a cleanuop campaign for theAnacostia River, one the country’s most pollutef waterways.
There are advocates for the poor who oppose the tax on groundzs that it willhit low-incomer District residents the hardest. Georges Franklin, director of Covenangt Food Pantry on South Capitol said most food banks inWard 8, where Covenant oppose a tax because of concerns that they will be forcef to buy bags to distribute food to hungru residents, which would take away from moneyg for food. Covenant distributes food in more than 800 donated plastic bagsper month, he said. “My personal thoughts are yes we should clean upthe Anacostia, but a tax is not the way to do Franklin said.
Franklin said if reusable bags were effectivelyydistributed beforehand, a future tax on paper and plastic bags might be more “Can this happen another time? Probably,” he