Referendum 1

What is Referendum 1?

In 2008, the Seattle City Council passed an ordinance creating a 20 cent fee on all disposable shopping bags at grocery, drug, and convenience stores. The purpose of the green fee is to discourage the use of disposable paper and plastic bags and encourage the use of reusables. This fee, modeled after a similar law in Ireland is expected to reduce bag use by up to 90%.

Referendum 1 is about getting Seattleites to bring their own bag to the store in order to reduce waste, greenhouses gases, and environmental impacts. To do this, in 2008, the Seattle City Council passed an ordinance creating a 20 cent fee on all disposable shopping bags at grocery, drug, and convenience stores. The purpose of the green fee is to discourage the use of disposable paper and plastic bags and encourage the use of reusables. This fee, modeled after a similar law in Ireland is expected to reduce bag use by up to 90%.

What happens to the 20 cent fee?

Most of the funds collected would go to Seattle Public utilities to pay for an educational campaign and encouraging consumers to use reusable bags, a bag giveaway program for soup kitchens, low income families and those who need assistance, and to offset the costs of solid waste and recycling programs in Seattle.

Stores would keep five cents of every twenty cents collected as a way to cover the administrative cost of the program. Smaller stores, with less than one million in revenues, would actually keep the entire fee.

I thought this already passed, why is there a referendum?

After The American Chemistry Council, the lobby representing oil and chemical companies like Exxon and Dow Chemical, spent almost $200,000 to force a referendum vote, on August 18, we have the chance to vote YES to keep our law, saying NO to big oil.

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