The new Dallas single use bag fee took effect New Year’s Day as stores and customers confronted the litter fighting plan.
Stores must now charge a 5 cent fee for plastic and paper bags that used to be free. The law is intended to encourage customers to bring their own reusable bags.
Dallas City Councilman Dwaine Caraway supported the law as a compromise to his initial push to ban single use bags in Dallas.
"It is our day to begin to heal, clean up, educate and clean our environment and remove the litter," Caraway said. "To not do it would have meant that the trash that you see would continue to mount, on top of trash, on top of trash, on top of trash and the environment would have been degraded even more."
Customers at the Food Rite grocery store on Marsalis at Illinois Avenue had mixed feelings about the plan.
Customer Sylvester Thomas said the fee Caraway supported is unfair. "He’s not green in my mind. He ain’t doing this for me. He’s taxing me. I pay taxes enough," Thomas said.
To avoid the fee in the future, Thomas chose to purchase several of the store’s 39 cent reusable bags instead of paying for single use bags that used to be free. "I’m going to be a smart shopper," he said.
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Customer Harriet Thomas was surprised by the fee as she checked out a cart full of groceries that required 8 plastic bags. "It’s not the bag that’s the problem. It’s the people that litter," she said.
But other customers supported the plan.
"I can see why it might be good, because you see these bags everywhere, on fences, in trees, shrubs. So I think it’s a good deal," customer Henry Lockhart said.
Customer Cedric Claybon said plastic bag litter has become tangled under his car on the road in Dallas. "The next thing you know you pull into your drive way you got this stuck up under your muffler or something like this here. So yes, I think that is encouraging,” Claybon said.
Some stores have protested the expense and complication of the new law. Stores must now offer certain types of bags with the store name printed on them. Stores must register to pay the city the bag fees they collect.
The money will offset the city’s expense for litter clean up. Caraway said stores and customers will be given time to learn about the new law.
"They’re going to come eventually and check up on us, make sure we’re doing everything right,” said Food Rite manager Trent La. He said his store is ready and he is working to explain the rules to customers. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It reduces bags off the streets, so it’s a good thing,” La said.
