Dive Brief:
- The District of Columbia’s nickel tax on plastic and paper shopping bags has been much-vaunted, but the program also has critics. They say the six-year-old law isn’t doing a lot to clean up the Anacostia River, as it was intended.
- The bag fees have added up, bringing millions into the program, including about $7.5 million from 2010 to 2013 that’s gone to the Anacostia River Clean Up and Preservation Fund.
- But according to according to a city audit, the effectiveness of the nickel a bag program is debatable. Its proponents still pump the effort.
Dive Insight:
Begun with the winning catch-phrase, "Skip the Bag, Save the River," the nickel a bag program's effectiveness now is being questioned. Plastic bags still are being deposited in the Anacostia River, and the program will spend $1.2 million over the next two years to send every fifth-grader in the District of Columbia on a two-night field trip to campsites outside D.C.
As other communities place taxes on plastic bags, accountability for the funds will be crucial. As evident by the way the program is viewed in D.C., saving a river can range from reducing the number of bags in circulation, to removing debris from the river to educating children. The Department of the Environment, which also questioned the way the audit was performed, told The Washington Post the bottom line is to "make sure our river is fishable and swimmable by 2032."