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The Case for Taxing Bottled Water

Five years ago, it seemed unimaginable that a tax on plastic bags would spread from socially conscious San Francisco to cities including Los Angeles, Dallas, and Washington D.C. But it did—and early findings suggest that there have been reductions in plastic bag use.

Five years ago, it seemed unimaginable that a tax on plastic bags would spread from socially conscious San Francisco to cities including Los Angeles, Dallas, and Washington D.C. But it did—and early findings suggest that there have been reductions in plastic bag use.

 

Why don’t we do the same for bottled water? There are enormous environmental, social, and ethical costs associated with bottled water. The public should be able to recoup them.

 

Taxing bottled water works

 

Taxing bottled water has been shown to be effective by a couple of measures. First, in terms of consumer behavior: Washington state passed a bottled water tax in 2010, and though it was repealed shortly thereafter, it produced a marked reduction in bottled-water consumption. A 2013 study of that tax from U.C. Berkeley found that, “when taxed, the average quantity of bottled water purchased in treated states drops significantly, by 6.4 percent, as compared to the untaxed control states.”

 

And, second, in terms of tax revenue: In 2008, the city of Chicago enacted a tax of five cents per bottle of water sold retail. Peter Gleick, co-founder and president of the water policy think-tank Pacific Institute, writes that, in the first five years of the tax, the city raised some $38 million from the sales of 763 million bottles of water, based on data from the Chicago Department of Finance. That’s the same amount Cook County plans to spend fixing roads this summer.

 

Imagine what Detroit, with its water infrastructure crisis, could do with that tax revenue: It could cover a year’s worth of water-line replacements, for example. Imagine what the country could do with that revenue. In 2013, Americans drank 10 billion gallons of bottled water, an industry record. Sales are only increasing.

 

Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
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