John Sattgast reports from Olympia.
If you think grocery prices are high now, wait until a bill passed by House Democrats early Tuesday morning becomes law.
Washington state already has the fourth-highest grocery prices in the nation. Now enter Senate Bill 5284, a Democratic-sponsored measure that would shift recycling financial responsibility from cities and counties to an unelected producer organization and make producers pay to increase the recycle rate of the products they create.
House Republican Environmental Leader Mary Dye says the extra cost of food packaging from the new program would be passed to the consumer through higher grocery prices:
“And those food prices are going to create hardship for people. It will be a burden on the regular and ordinary households, making those budgets harder to stretch.”
House Republican Floor Leader April Connors is not convinced the new program would increase recycling in Washington:
“People are struggling right now. All this program is going to do in my opinion, Madam Speaker, is raise the price of groceries.”
The bill passed, 51 to 45, early Tuesday morning. The measure now needs Senate approval before it can go to the governor.
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