On Jan. 1, 2026, Montgomery County’s new “Bring Your Own Bag Policy” went into effect, banning plastic shopping bags and imposing a 10-cent tax on mandated paper replacements. County leaders suggest that the policy will simultaneously advance environmental objectives and shore up the budget amidst a $150 million budget deficit.

While the intentions of the policy may have been good, a closer look reveals that the tax is useless at best and counterproductive at worst. It is inconsistent and inconvenient, disproportionately burdening certain businesses and people without addressing the financial and environmental issues that the county says it solves.

While the plastic bag ban is new, the bag tax itself is an old tool that has been doubled from five cents to 10 cents. The policy remains a patchwork of selective exemptions for certain businesses, food items and localities. By doubling down on this approach, Montgomery County is literally nickeling-and-diming its residents, elevating a small, unpopular and highly visible tax that does not address the pressing issues the county faces. 

Yet the county continues to deceive the people they purport to serve. Using verbal sleight of hand, the county website says the new bag fees shift costs “from public taxpayers to consumers.” But in reality, there are no “public taxpayers.” Taxpayers are private citizens who pay taxes, and so are the “consumers” who pay the fee at checkout. 

The bag tax will help fund the Water Quality Protection Charge (WQPC), which monitors and protects county waterways. However, while the WQPC is an admirable and legitimate function of government, the revenue generated by the bag tax is relatively insignificant and cannot be relied upon as a stable source of funding for county environmental programs.

According to the tax schedule for the county’s projected $5.3 billion in revenue, the bag tax generated around $2.9 million in 2025. But as residents are encouraged to shift toward reusable bags, the county anticipates that future bag-tax revenue will decline by more than $300,000. By contrast, the WQPC has a much steadier revenue stream of $57 million from household water bills. Fiscally, the bag tax is a blip and serves no other purpose than political sanctimoniousness. 

Aside from the policy’s budgetary irrelevance, its environmental justification is equally strained, especially considering the inconsistent exceptions it makes for certain localities or businesses. While plastic bags are not biodegradable and can pose environmental risks when improperly disposed of, paper bags are more expensive, require more resources and pollute more during the manufacturing process.

According to the Columbia Climate School, paper bag manufacturing uses approximately 1.6 times as much fossil fuel, 17 times as much water and 3.4 times more energy than conventional plastic bags. Simultaneously, paper bags produce twice as much greenhouse gas emissions and five times as much “municipal solid waste.” These tradeoffs challenge the county’s assumption that this substitution represents a positive environmental improvement.

Even setting aside these statistics, the county’s nonsensical exceptions obscure any real environmental benefit. Local exemptions for plastic bags and carve-outs for restaurants, pharmacies, fresh produce, meat and seafood further undermine the policy’s central justification. A plastic bag from a restaurant in Gaithersburg is no different from one used in a Bethesda grocery store, yet the law exempts the former while regulating the latter.

In principle, though 10 cents may not be a lot of money, the policy is regressive, disproportionately affecting lower-income residents for whom the recurring consumption tax carries greater weight. The government should not punish residents for simply forgetting a bag in their car, nor should it selectively impose costs on certain businesses while exempting others under similar circumstances. 

According to a survey conducted by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland, 69% of county residents oppose doubling the bag tax, which is stunning since the same poll showed that a similar majority of residents supported the old 5-cent bag tax. This distinction shows that residents hold a nuanced view: they support moderate environmental protection laws but reject excessive and punitive taxes.

This poll shows residents recognize that the new bag tax fails every prudential metric: it is unclear and inconsistent in design, negligible in fiscal impact and dubious in its environmental effects. If Montgomery County is serious about its future, it ought to abandon symbolic measures like the bag tax and pursue substantive solutions that are more transparent, effective and respectful of consumer choice.