{"id":85715,"date":"2017-10-22T07:32:15","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T11:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=85715"},"modified":"2017-10-21T17:13:55","modified_gmt":"2017-10-21T21:13:55","slug":"letter-open-letter-to-lebanon-residents-and-concerned-county-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=85715","title":{"rendered":"LETTER: Open letter to Lebanon residents and concerned county residents"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\"><em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-70195\" src=\"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/letter-to-editor-300x218.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"218\" srcset=\"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/letter-to-editor-300x218.gif 300w, https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/letter-to-editor-150x109.gif 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>To the Editor:<\/em><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">I welcome your comments but, to date, nearly 75 percent of the comments from actual\u00a0Madison County residents, not the paid industry lobbyists, favor a ban on plastic\u00a0bags.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">There is no evidence that charging a fee reduces use and, in fact, calling this a tax is a joke because even in a poor New York City neighborhood, six to seven plastic bags is only\u00a0going to add 35 cents to the grocery tab.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">It is farcical to suggest that this is an onerous tax on poor people. Prior surveys done in Lebanon show as much or more support for a ban on convenience and\u00a0grocery store plastic bags, as these are the most flimsy and break down into pollutants rather quickly. Most are not recycled. The market for these plastic bags is shrinking and quite limited now. China, the largest importer of recycling\u00a0products, \u00a0has taken steps to reduce imports for recycling.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Our solid waste\u00a0committee is going to be making final law adjustments in the coming weeks (mainly reducing the number of exemptions we\u00a0found out are not required by law), and I hope to see a law<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">enacting a ban on certain types of plastic bags used by grocery and convenience stores to be voted on in November or December. Stores and consumers will have six months to\u00a0prepare, if it is adopted, before it goes into effect.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Please let me know your thoughts. I do not agree with the fee approach that the county originally considered, but our research revealed it is\u00a0simply not effective, puts more money in the pockets<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">of the industry and is viewed as a financial nightmare to manage by our county treasurer to enforce and collect.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Stores can make reusable bags\u00a0available for sale and even find advertisers and promotions that give them away to customers that would make it easier\u00a0for shoppers to transition. The greatest proponents of bag fees are paid lobbyists for the industry.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Please share this with\u00a0interested others.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><em>Jim Goldstein,\u00a0Lebanon Supervisor<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To the Editor: I welcome your comments but, to date, nearly 75 percent of the comments from actual\u00a0Madison County residents, not the paid industry lobbyists, favor a ban on plastic\u00a0bags. There is no evidence that charging a fee reduces use and, in fact, calling this a tax is a joke because even in a poor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23678,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letterstotheeditor","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}