On April 15th, Portland will become the first city in Maine to charge a five cent per disposable bag fee. Those bags include the plastic bags you get at grocery stores. Now some Maine lawmakers are introducing bills to make this a statewide law.

There are currently three bills pending before the legislature that would require retailers to collect five for each disposable plastic bag.

Critics argue that the fees amount to an additional tax on consumers and force retailers to make costly upgrades to their registers and slow down the checkout process.

Currently more than 130 communities across the country have implemented disposable bag fees or have even banned them.

What do you think?

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