Never ‘free’

We all knew the day was coming—it was just a matter of when.
After years of wrestling with the issue, peppered with plenty of whiny references to how lucky we all were to have a “free” bag of garbage picked up each week, town council finally decided yesterday to dump that practice. As of Monday, June 3 (pending council officially passing the bylaw at a future meeting, of course), every bag/receptacle must have a bag tag attached in order to be picked up.
Truth is, our “free” bag was never free. Residents paid for garbage collection through their property taxes, so any claims that one bag a week was “free” is downright false. Let’s call a spade a spade: a “bag tag,” or an “environmental fee” that is tacked onto our bi-monthly sewer and water bill, is simply an extra tax on top of a tax we’re already paying.
Sure, the town has reduced the cost of bag tags from $2.25 to $1.25. But given the steady increase in price since bag tags first were introduced here in 2004, you can bet it won’t be long until that’s back in the $2-plus range.
You also can bet that even if the town’s financial situation improves down the road, we’ll never go back to one “free” bag once it’s gone.
Council should leave the bag tag system as is. But if the town is to eliminate the one-bag exemption, as it seemingly intends to do, garbage collection must be removed from property taxes.
And to truly punish extra waste, while ensuring revenue is not lost, the cost for additional bags of garbage should be higher than the first one, not the same (which, after all, was the initial point of bag tags).