OAKLAND, Calif. - Fed up with burger wrappers, french fry containers and paper cups, Oakland is the first city in the nation to force fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and other businesses to help pay for cleaning up street trash.
Under a tax approved Tuesday night by the City Council, businesses will be assessed between $230 and $3,815 annually, depending on their size. More than three-quarters of the affected businesses would only pay the minimum fee, which amounts to 63 cents a day.
"I don't think that's too much to ask so neighbors don't have to keep picking up trash from their doorways," said Councilwoman Jane Brunner, who proposed the measure.
It sounds like an interesting plan. Clean up trash by penalizing the fast food companies for the trash they produce. Naturally business interests have a problem with it.
The fee was opposed by the Metropolitan Oakland Chamber of Commerce and business organizations that say the costs will be passed along to customers, including low-income residents and young people who are the biggest consumers of fast food.
Businesses say the city should educate the public and enforce littering laws. Some say they already pay employees to pick up trash in their neighborhoods.
If the fee is passed on to customers, then what's their problem? They won't be paying for it! "Educate the public and enforce littering laws"; sounds good to me but how is the city supposed to do that without more money? I guess what businesses are really saying is that civic duty has nothing to do with them and the city should clean up whatever messes they make. Well, I admit that obviously litter is caused by individuals who don't respect the law or value a clean neighborhood. But as a matter of practicality, they'll be the ones paying for the clean up, so it seems like a good plan to me. If it works there, it could certainly work here. I'll have to check back in a year and see how it's going.
2 comments:
I don't have a problem with this. Perhaps it would be fairer to impose a tax in the form of fines and fees on litterers, but that would also require the imlpementation of robotic police and cameras everywhere that can instantly fine someone everytime trash is thrown on the ground. Taxation sounds practical to me, and in all liklihood will encourage these businesses to produce less waste in packaging and selling their products, which is a good thing regardless.
Yeah, that's another argument I didn't really bring up in the post. With E-waste, an argument for fining the producers is that in an effort to avoid paying fines, they'll start producing materials that don't result in so much trash, both by reducing package sizes and using more recyclable materials. They'll do whatever's most cost-effective. It's a very practical solution, and one that I don't think is very onerous on businesses.
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