VOA: Green Auction Benefits Green Causes

Original Article:
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Tax-In-The-Bag-84472552.html

I have corrected the transcript. Here is the corrected version:

WARD: The Anacostia River is filthy. Litter adorns its shores and plastic bags swim in its current. Known as Washington D.C.'s "Forgotten River," it flows from Maryland to the U.S. Capitol finally merging into the larger, better known, Potomac River. Trash from there can eventually end up in the ocean. Brent Bolin is with the the Anacostia Watershed Society. He believes the new bag fee instituted in Washington will help clean up the city and the Anacostia.

BOLIN: Metropolitan Washington Council governments did a trash survey throughout the Anacostia. They found that around 33 percent of the the trash that they recovered out of--so twelve--around twelve thousand out of thirty-six thousand items that they recovered were plastic bags.

WARD: The five-cent fee applies to any bag--large or small, plastic or paper--at all retail outlets. You can avoid the fee if you remember to bring your own bag.

SHOPPER: "It's unfortunate that we didn't bring enough today, so we had to pay for our five extra bags. That's OK. That's OK. Next time we'll know better. We'll just keep them in the car."

WARD: Steve McKinley-Ward volunteers to help clean up an experimental trash trap on a small tributary of the Anacostia. He owes the excess garbage to simply bad behavior.

MCKINLEY-WARD: It's litterbugs. It's absolutely litterbugs just throwing their stuff out dropping right on the street or sidewalk. And the action of a heavy rain will just get that stuff mobile, floating, and all the water goes to one place--little storm drain inlet port right at the edge of the curb--goes under there--this goes with it. That's where all this stuff comes from. It's litter, the product of litterbugs.

WARD: At this grocery store in northwest Washington, the new bag fee has met with little resistance; that according to store manager Jack Eaton.

EATON: It was a very popular move on our part, and I think that it was really is pushing that issue and it's getting everybody involved, so all that trash--all that litter that--it just blows in the wind. Should,we should see a pretty immediate effect of that.

WARD: Grocery stores in Washington were at first were opposed to the idea of a bag fee thinking they'd lose business to retail stores in nearby Virginia or Maryland. The Giant Food has now joined forces with the Anacostia Watershed Society and gave away about a quarter of a million reusable bags to their Washington customers.

EATON: We packed everybody's orders in these reusable bags to help the customer get acclimated to the new bag tax and try to lessen the uh shock to their system. It was well received. We had numerous positive comments on it.

WARD: But not everyone is OK with the new bag fee. This shopper says any additional fee is hard on the elderly.

SHOPPER: You have to remember to get your tote bags and your plastic bags because they're five cents each. I think it's ridiculous.

WARD: Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform shares that sentiment calling the bag fee just another tax on consumers.

NORQUIST: The politicians want to have a tax on bags. The fact that they want to try and call it a fee tells you that they're liars as well as tax increasers.

WARD: Bag fee or bag tax--it still costs the same five cents. But the Anacostia Watershed Society says the goal is not to make money--it's to change behavior. Although the city expects to make three or four million dollars this year to help clean up the Anacostia, the hope is that eventually there will be fewer bags, less trash, and a cleaner environment. I'm VOA's Rebecca Ward for Going Green.