Starting Jan. 1, stores will start charging five cents for every plastic and paper bag that you are going to use.

On Sept. 10, 2015, the city received a letter from a local environmental group, who were pushing for either banning plastic bags or placing a fee.

With further discussions about what to do with the matter, City Council decided to approve for the Carryout Bag Ordinance on Nov. 7, 2016, as an effort to decrease the use of plastic bag.

The whole purpose of the charge is to have people realize that they can use reusable bags, in an effort to minimize plastic bag consumption.

City Council Member Nancy Lillquist said “too many of [the plastic bags] find their way in the land, sea, get broken down and mixed with the environment and get eaten.”

As a member of the City Council, Lillquist “…voted to send Our Environment’s petition proposing the bag ban to the Environmental Commission for review and recommendation…serve as Council liaison to the Environmental Commission…”

While the plastic tax won’t be in effect till Jan. 1, there are many citizens who have no idea that there is even a tax to begin with. The people who are aware of this are mostly store employee. The city ordinance has placed the stores in charge of letting the customers aware of the extra five cents on plastic bags, yet there has been little marketing for the plastic tax.

“We have been talking about this for two years now,” Lillquist said

Lillquist did mention how there will still be people who are not going to be aware of this. It has been on the radio, newspaper and television, but there will be people who have other things on their minds to pay attention to.

A customer at Safeway, recently moved to Ellensburg in July, claimed that she was unaware of the plastic tax.

“I have [reusable bags], I just forgot to bring them, but I think it’s a good idea,” a customer at Safeway said.

” I’ve been slacking in buying reusable bags, even though they just cost 99 cents,” a Grocery Outlet employee said.

A Safeway Clerk said, “No, not that I’m aware of,” when it comes to promoting reusable bags, so customers won’t have to pay the five cent charge.

Lilliquist did say that this initiative will not be fully effective in slowing the use of plastic bags, nor will this new policy stop the sales of plastic bags all together. People will forget to bring their reusable bags, they won’t mind paying five cents or they will take the plastic bags to keep for themselves.

When asked about why only five cents as the charge, Lillquist said, “the research I saw said that five cents was enough. Most places in Washington have banned plastic and put five cent fee for paper”

She also mentioned that with the research, “…psychologically, it’s enough just to trigger a reaction of ‘I don’t want to pay that’, and don’t want to feel pain.”

While the initiative has not started yet, Lillquist was asked about what if it does not work?

“If it doesn’t work, then we will reconsider,” Lillquist said.

She restated that five cents would be enough to make a difference, and there will be no point to raising the price if the people don’t care about the charge. Lillquist said, “Why will we expect it to work at ten cents?”