Implementing a tax on all bottled beverages?

We have all seen the various ways that states and cities have either limited the size of drinks (fountain drinks especially) as well as taxing soda's in some cities to help pay for "healthcare" (see Philadelphia). Now I think this seems like they are targeting certain manufactures for possibly illegal reasons, but while I am usually against new taxes, especially if there isn't a clear reason for implementing them and a way to determine exactly where the tax revenue is going, how it is spent, if it is being misused, etc - but when we see how many people use bottled beverages, many of which are often not recycled (which is a totally different question as to if it is worthwhile).

Most people will agree that most all bottled beverages are not the healthiest forms of nutrients as they often have a high level of sugar/HFCS/aspartame/etc. These bottles could be in plastic bottles, glass bottles or aluminum cans and aluminum cans seems to be the only one that is universally recycled.

I'm wondering how beneficial it would be to tax every plastic bottle or non-deposit/returnable glass bottles, possibly dependent upon the capacity of the bottle, so maybe every 16-20oz would be 1 cent, 2L 3cents - or some other metric such as 32oz/20 =1.6 cents or 10 oz = half a cent, 1 gallon would equal 6.4 cents.

This tax could go to helping deal with cleaning up environmental plastic waste, recycling plastics (and glass) and other things which need to be done to help keep plastic trash out of the environment.

I would suggest that the tax be imposed at the manufacturer or distributor level as the collection of the taxes would be more centrally located, easier to collect/submit and wouldn't require the retailer to worry about this (there are probably 500x the retailers as there are distributors). The tax would be factored into the marked price at the retailer and it wouldn't be added at the register. This would also mean that if bottles are "stolen" or don't get rung up, they are still paid for before they are sold.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

They do the same with tobacco. It's consumer manipulation. Tax the sheat out of items they deem ???, unhealthy???, cost society in health expence???, whatever reason they deem a product ????. Fricking people can't live and let live. They have to make you live by their rules. Also, any way to raise a tax dollar.

originally posted by: CharlesT
a reply to: DigginFoTroof

They do the same with tobacco. It's consumer manipulation. Tax the sheat out of items they deem ???, unhealthy???, cost society in health expence???, whatever reason they deem a product ????. Fricking people can't live and let live. They have to make you live by their rules. Also, any way to raise a tax dollar.

Well the thing with having large amounts of plastic being landfilled because it isn't economical to recycle it, this tax would go to help subsidize the recycling the materials - to some extent, not making it a hugely profitable job to recycle.

When something is effecting the environment, then the companies that are making this product should be held responsible in some way for either helping to clean up the mess of their items, or to help keep the product out of the environment.

This isn't a money grab, it is a way to deal with environmental pollution where the current burden is left on the communities and government which is a major tax burden, while the manufacturer (source of pollution) are making obscene profits.

I worked as an industrial electrician. At some point, the state determined every electrician must have a licence so I was required to grandfather in and buy a license that cost $25 every year. Not once did anyone ever, EVER check my license, not once. Just more revenue to the state. Sons of Bitcheas!

No, we don’t need more taxes.

I use bottled water all the time. It is the only way to ensure I don’t get fluoride in my water since it is mandated by the state of Ohio to be in all tap water.

Terrible idea to add more taxes to our already huge tax burden.

I don’t like taxes but why not just tax fat people?

Drink what you like, as long as you take care of yourself

originally posted by: Metallicus
No, we don’t need more taxes.

I use bottled water all the time. It is the only way to ensure I don’t get fluoride in my water since it is mandated by the state of Ohio to be in all tap water.

Terrible idea to add more taxes to our already huge tax burden.

I would look into the potential of fluoride in bottled water as I researched this a while ago and it found that it was present in almost all soda's and most all domestic bottled water. For those that don't know, much of the bottled water is just tap water, the same that is used to make the soda's, possibly put through a filter, but very doubtful that it would remove the fluoride. I was very shocked to find that the F levels were MUCH higher than what I thought they could be in bottled drinks.

It did seem to vary between regions, some areas had up to 6x the amount of other areas and I am guessing that this is due to the amount of F in the water supply, not that more is added by the bottling company.

Anything that contains aspartame should just be outlawed, PERIOD !

People who have faith in taxes on anything other than a means of control need to look at history and see how some good sounding tax is siphoned off and used for other purposes.. Not to mention the black market that is created in many cases.

While I do agree plastic pollution is a big big problem you would think if anyone of the big boys really cared they would science the crap out of plastic and make it biodegradable after being exposed to direct sunlight for a given time.

If you want to tax something IMO Aspartame and Margarine should be taxed to the point of, making and using the stuff is unprofitable to use in anything.

I've been having some hypoglycemic crashes lately, fueled by nitrates in foods. Seems those salads I really like are the culprit. Those spins suck, the nitrates whip open my arteries and my blood pressure dives. I have to keep water around to chug to restore my volume.

I have been toying with alternate ways to fix the problem. I found if I drink some mountain dew, I get lots of energy and my muscles do not release that nitrogen chemistry that causes the spins. The hypoglycemic spins and the orthostatic hypotension spins, caused by low blood volume, seem to be related. I just can't consume much foods containing nitrates. Including hot dogs and lunchmeats, not just lettuce and green stuff.

You can always tell when the government is running out of money. You start hearing all this nonsense about punishing people for living and calling it a tax.

originally posted by: DigginFoTroof

originally posted by: Metallicus
No, we don’t need more taxes.

I use bottled water all the time. It is the only way to ensure I don’t get fluoride in my water since it is mandated by the state of Ohio to be in all tap water.

Terrible idea to add more taxes to our already huge tax burden.

I would look into the potential of fluoride in bottled water as I researched this a while ago and it found that it was present in almost all soda's and most all domestic bottled water. For those that don't know, much of the bottled water is just tap water, the same that is used to make the soda's, possibly put through a filter, but very doubtful that it would remove the fluoride.

1. I'm of the opinion that I'd like to keep my teeth.

2. Reverse osmosis is a better filter than most people have for tap water. If it says it's purified by reverse osmosis on the bottle, I'd drink that before I would plain tap water.

Not a tax...a deposit to ensure recycling. Had them at one time and I think some states still do.

originally posted by: matafuchs
Not a tax...a deposit to ensure recycling.

Tell you what. You can keep the deposit and I'll pee in the bottle and send it to you free of charge. How's that for recycling? Recycled soda!

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Um, ok? If you like to piss in bottles. Whole idea with a deposit is you get back money and if you don't return it you don't get the deposit. Not sure i have your line of thinking here...is recycling bad?

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

No.

Not a single new tax until government has shown that it spends OUR money responsibly.

Period.

Done.

Nope.

No way.

originally posted by: matafuchs
Not sure i have your line of thinking here...is recycling bad?

Not if you ask people to do it and they choose to. If you're going to coerce people to do things by punishing them through the tax code every time they do something you don't like, you might as well just change the entire system of government to some kind of dictatorship.

And by the way, I think most people wouldn't mind recycling if they didn't have to go out of their way to do it. I don't have any idea where I would take anything to be recycled but there's a truck that comes around to pick up the trash like clockwork. Make it that easy to recycle and people will probably do it.

But then again, I worry when I eat or drink out of anything that's been recycled. Oh sure. It feels nice and fuzzy to think you're saving the planet (you aren't, by the way). For all you know there's toxic sludge baked right into your nice recycled food container because they're not going to put the amount of effort required into meticulously sorting out every single can, bottle or plastic container. So you never really know what's going to end up going into the recycler make happener. Stuff could be radioactive for all you know. Which might just explain what happened to the brains of all these toxic environMENTALists who believe that being abrasive little dictators is going to make people want to "do the right thing". No. It's going to make people resent them and not listen to them.