French Pique-nique Tax

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


758px-Manet%2C_Edouard_-_Le_D%E9jeuner_sur_l%27Herbe_%28The_Picnic%29_%281%29.jpg It’s about time. The French, those pique-nique-aholics, are about to tax non-recyclable throwaway plates and cutlery. The tax would apply to non-recyclable cardboard but not plastic tableware. (Pourquoi pas?) It’s part of a wider move to encourage people to use more eco-friendly products. Including (maybe) consumer electronics.

Reuters reports that France has already introduced the bonus-malus system for cars—taxing the most heavily polluting vehicles while giving tax breaks to greener ones. Le Figaro reports on a possible list of new taxable items: fridges, washing machines, televisions, batteries, and wooden furniture.

Sacré bleu. You mean while we’ve been dissing them with freedom fries and whatnot they’ve been trying to address some of the real terrors on planet Earth? FYI, I’ve been carrying two sets of plastic cutlery in my messenger bag for a couple of years now. Picnic-ready (toujours, n’est pas?) and trying to minimize my own trail of waste.

Julia Whitty is Mother Jones’ environmental correspondent, lecturer, and 2008 winner of the Kiriyama Prize and the John Burroughs Medal Award.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate