ALBANY -- If Assemblyman Micah Kellner has his way, someone carrying a plastic bag full of groceries would get the same disdainful looks that might be directed at a pregnant lady smoking, or someone walking away from the stinky contribution their pooch has made to a New York City sidewalk.

"I want to make it a faux pas to be seen on the street with a plastic bag," said Kellner, a Manhattan Democrat. "While we may use plastic bags for a couple of minutes to bring home our groceries, they stay in the environment for thousands of years."

Kellner is sponsoring a bill, introduced late last month, that would impose a 25-cent tax on every plastic bag used to carry groceries or other store merchandise in New York City. The same bill would incentivize the use of reusable shopping bags -- made of canvas or thicker, sometimes recycled plastic -- by allowing grocers to give them to consumers if they leave a quarter as a deposit. After a year, the unclaimed quarters would be swept to City Hall's coffers. A tax break would be offered to cover "a majority" of the cost of reusable bags, which cost over $1 on the low end, more if you want hemp or recycled cotton.

Kellner notes that because plastic bags often end up as litter, his measure would keep streets cleaner. And if the bags do make it to landfills, the non-biodegradable, petroleum-based sacks outlive us all.

Kellner cited a reusable bag company's claim that the average American will go through 60 bags after four shopping trips.

David Vermillion, a spokesman for Hilex Poly, the nation's largest recycler and manufacturer of plastic bags, framed it this way: "By that math, he's taxing a family $3.75 every time they go to the grocery store -- money they could use to buy milk for their children."

Vermillion notes that plastic bags are 100 percent recyclable, and many municipalities have taken steps to make it easier for consumers to have them reprocessed. Albany County unanimously passed a law in 2008 requiring stores larger than 10,000 square feet (the size of the average Price Chopper or Target) to place bins outside their doors allowing consumers to drop off used bags. It mirrored a similar law that went on the books in New York City earlier that year.

Price Chopper stores also offer a 3-cent-per-bag rebate for customers who bring their own reusable carriers. But the Big Apple's residents still go through 5.2 billion plastic bags a year, according to a 2009 estimate by the New York City Department of Sanitation.

"That's billion with a B," said Kellner.

So far, his bill doesn't have much traction. Kellner has yet to find a co-sponsor to carry the measure in the Senate, and even if his bill were enacted, it would be incumbent on the New York City Council to pass an actual tax. There's no one in that body shopping a "home rule message," or a formal request for the state Legislature to act.

If past is prologue, the bill will be viewed by most from one of two perspectives: as another example of the nanny state reaching into people's lives, or as government stepping in to coax citizens into behaving more conscientiously for the collective good.

Ideas like this are gaining support from advocates given the state's estimated $10 billion budget deficit, which could require billions in cuts to schools and health care.

Kellner cited a study that found $250 million a year could be raised, assuming people continue their current level of usage.

The Alliance for State Parks sponsored a poll that found a penny-per-bag tax -- which they hope could raise $60 million to be dedicated for park maintenance -- was supported by 73 percent of New Yorkers surveyed.

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According to Eileen Larrabee, the group's spokeswoman, the "pennies for parks" plan would "address the chronically underfunded state parks system while addressing the environmental concern of plastic bags that cause litter, end up in landfills and require energy to make."

That proposal hasn't moved very far, either.

Kellner says it's not about the money. "If you said we're going to put a nickel tax -- that's a nuisance tax. That's a tax to generate revenue. This is about changing people's behavior," he said.

But Vermillion used the dreaded T-word. And touching on the theme of national competitiveness, he noted that lots of the reusable bags out there are made in China. Some of them even have unsafe levels of lead, according to a federal study he was happy to point to.

"Bans and taxes are not only ineffective, they serve to kill American jobs, stifle a growing recycling industry and they drive people to use alternatives that have been shown to be potentially unsafe," said Vermillion. "It would be a faux pas to introduce public policy that could put dangerous lead in New Yorkers homes -- far worse than a faux pas, actually."

Tax or no, Kellner vowed to continue his efforts as a messianic (reusable) bag man. He stands outside stores in his Upper East Side district, handing out tote bags to shoppers in hopes they will not use the plastic ones provided. They don't have lead, and he's bought a total of 5,000 of them.

Sure, he sheepishly admits, they have his name on them. Those two years between every election tend to fly by.

"But they're very fashionable," he said. "I'm like the Justin Bieber of tote bags."

Reach Vielkind at 454-5081 or jvielkind@timesunion.com.