Hawaii Officially Bans the Plastic Bag

All hail Hawaii! Awesomely, Hawaii has become the first state in the United States to fully ban the plastic bag. According to http://ecowatch.org, “This was not done by the state legislature, but instead by all four County Councils—a great example of local activists and decision makers addressing the serious issue of plastic pollution.”  If you didn’t know, plastic bags are not biodegradable, instead they photo-degrade and break down into small toxic pieces which contaminate bodies of water and enter the food chain when mistaken by marine animals as food.

In a place like Hawaii, plastic bags posed a big threat to its diverse and beautiful ecosystem. As well as being unsightly litter, plastic bags are responsible for the death of thousands of birds, sea turtles, and other animal deaths as these animals mistake bags as food. So, not only do plastic bags pose a huge threat to the environment, but they are also extremely economically wasteful. Consider these facts from http://www.envirosax.com/plastic_bag_facts:

Photo by Leo Reynolds via Flickr.com

• Approx. 380 billion plastic bags are used in the United States every year. That’s more than 1,200 bags per US resident, per year.
• Approx. 100 billion of the 380 billion used are plastic shopping bags.
• An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many plastic bags.
• Only 1 to 2% of plastic bags in the USA end up getting recycled.

Can you even believe that? How wasteful. Hopefully other states will follow Hawaii’s move and maybe one day the whole US will be plastic bag free. However, will this make more people switch to paper bags? Paper bags are a little better than plastic bags as they do biodegrade, but still. What is so difficult about bringing some cheaply purchased linen bags to shop with? Yes, plastic and paper bags may be convenient, but is it really okay at the expense of our nation’s environmental longevity?