SEATTLE -- Seattle customers will not have to pay the plastic or paper bag fee on January 1, 2009, after more than 14,000 signatures were collected – allowing voters to decide later in 2009.

The Coalition to Stop the Seattle Bag Tax, funded by the plastics industry and independent supermarkets, has been fighting the fee since the beginning.

The group gathered more than 15,000 signatures needed to get the issue on the ballot. The signatures have been verified and Seattle voters will decide the issue next August or November.

As part of Seattle’s zero-waste strategy initiated in June 2007, the city council voted in July to require a green fee, 20 cents charge for take-home paper or plastic shopping bags at grocery, convenience and drug stores, according to a press release

This bill put Seattle in a first-in-the-nation status by being first in the US to implement a bag fee on both disposable plastic and paper bags. Several cities have plastic bag bans, but none of them have fees in place.

Environmentalists, the city of Seattle, along with the plastics industry and grocery stores are expected to be involved in the campaign.