Why Seattle's bag tax and polystyrene ban are a bad ideas

I am not sure a totally buy this opinion piece... I hate plastic bags! I invariably will buy 1 or 2 items at a drug store only to have to fight to keep the clerk from putting my purchase in a plastic bag.

Full story in the Seattle Times is HERE

"When the currently free bags are taxed at 20 cents, we will buy reusable bags, probably by the millions. Most of these (generally made in China) are made from woven or flat sheet fabric polypropylene (type 5 plastic). It is extremely durable, but unlike the bag it will replace (type 2 plastic), it is not generally recyclable. Furthermore, because each one of these reusable bags requires as much as 300 times more resources to produce than a "bad" bag, it is entirely possible that the bag tax will result in an increase in oil use and carbon emissions.

The ban will not result in the disappearance of polystyrene foam. The vast majority of it will still be packed around all the things we order online. The city's own study shows that the ban will cause higher costs (69 percent more), more energy use (114 percent more), more carbon emissions (134 percent more) and more generated waste (140 percent more). What are we gaining here?"