WASHINGTON — The fifth time may be the charm for a proposed plastic-bag fee in Prince George’s County.
The Gazette reports that Sen. Paul Pinsky, D-Hyattsville, thinks that his bill has enough support to become law after having failed to pass out of the General Assembly’s Prince George’s County delegation four years in a row.
Pinsky blames lobbying from the plastics industry for the previous failures, and tells the Gazette that he thinks “it’s an idea whose time has come.”
Pinsky told the Gazette that plastic bags already cost the county millions of dollars every year in cleanup costs, and that shoppers are already paying the cost of the bags.
“Even if I bring my own bags, I still end up paying for plastic,” Pinsky said. “Now, it would be an add-on you could choose to pay or not.”
Del. Jay Walker, D-Fort Washington, is going a step farther, sponsoring a bill to ban plastic bags in Maryland altogether. That would make Maryland only the second state, after California, to do so.
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