River Forest residents may soon be paying a 10-cent tax for disposable bags in an effort to curb residential waste, the Pioneer Press reports.
The initiative is spearheaded by River Forest’s sustainability commission, which will explore the feasibility of implementing the tax as part of its 2018 goal to drastically decrease the amount of residential waste ending up in landfills, according to the Pioneer Press.
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This comes after Oak Park unanimously approved and implemented a 10-cent tax on disposable bags for retailers larger than 5,000 square feet. The tax went into effect Jan. 1.
Chicago also implemented a 7-cent bag tax Feb. 1, 2017, after a failed lightweight plastic bag ban.
The Chicago bag tax has proven incredibly successful, resulting in a more than 40-percent decrease in the amount of disposable bags used in the city, according to a city-commissioned joint study between behavioral design lab ideas42 and researchers from New York University and the University of Chicago.
