In California, many cities have banned plastic bags, but none have placed a fee or tax on them. That's because plastic bags are tax-free here, by law.

The law known as California Assembly Bill 2449, also known as the bag recycling law, prohibits governments at all levels from charging any type of fee or tax on plastic bags. It expires a year from now on Jan. 1, 2013. If cities have a right to regulate as they see fit, it's a law that should be allowed to expire.

It's a tax you'll never have to pay, and most people won't, if what happened in Washington, D.C., is any indication. City leaders there imposed a mere 5 cent tax on plastic carry-out bags in January 2011, and plastic bag use fell off by 50 percent, according to the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue.

No one is sorry that revenues are less than a third of the original income estimates. It's a tax that can reduce government spending by literally reducing waste.

It is no coincidence that AB 2449 shares an anniversary with San Francisco's well-known bag ban. In late 2006, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors was seeking to impose a 17 cent fee on plastic bags, the amount they calculated it cost the city, per bag, in clean up and landfill expenditures.

But while this measure was being debated, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 2449, outlawing the proposed tax. So San Francisco banned bags altogether.

Their bag ban – as all bans since then – does not fully prohibit all plastic bags from all establishments. Supermarkets and pharmacies with more than 10,000 square feet of retail space cannot hand out thin plastic bags, but mom-and-pop stores, liquor stores, convenience stores, take-out restaurants and the like can continue to hand out as many as they like.

Supermarkets are allowed to hand out thicker plastic bags, which the law defined as reusable.

There are no official numbers or studies, but the unintended result might have been more plastic in circulation, not less. San Francisco and other cities continue to spend time and resources strengthening and widening the bans to make them more effective.

Bag fees are easier and fairer to implement. Big stores and small stores are affected proportionally. If you forget your bag, the remedy is a simple fee. If you don't want to pay the fee, remember your bag. It's a pay-as-you-throw system – a tax you don't have to pay.

Some people have defended free bags saying that the poor will be disproportionately affected, but the truth is that there is no free bag for the poor or anyone else.

According to Trash Free Maryland, a nonprofit group committed to trash reduction, average Maryland consumers pay $37.50 in hidden bag costs every year. Stores embed the cost of bags into food and other products to cover their expenses and pass the cost along to consumers as a hidden cost.

Municipalities also hide costs for bags in taxes to clean up and landfill all those bags. According to Heal the Bay, California cities, states and counties spent an estimated $1.3 billion in 2009 for litter clean-up.

How much of that is for bags we will never know, but it is likely that the poor are disproportionately hit by budget cuts in services even as government outlays for trash disposal continue unabated.

California cities should have the right to regulate carry-out bags as they see fit.

Whether they seek to ban bags or impose fees, local municipalities should be able to decide. If sunshine is the best disinfectant, then let's clean up our act by allowing the light of day to shine on the true price of carry-out bags, and let the sun set on AB 2449.

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Lisa Foster is a social entrepreneur and president of 1 Bag at a Time Inc., a company she founded in 2005 to introduce reusable bags to American consumers.

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