It is very exciting to see more and more cities join the national effort to ban plastic bags from supermarkets by proposing taxes on them! Back home in Mexico over the summer we were informed through the newspapers that major shopping centers like Wal-Mart would no longer give away free plastic bags so the options were to pay for them or bring your own from home. I'm not sure if this rule was enforced or if it still is but it was great to see people becoming aware of the fact that plastic bags are terrible for the environment due to the long time they take to decompose. California didn't pass a statewide tax on plastic bags but states such as Texas, Alaska, and Hawaii now have a 20% tax on plastic bags and in Washington D.C. plastic bag use dropped from 22 million to 3 million in a month thanks to taxes!! I think this is a great initiative and it would be great if every state passed a similar law then the US could really reduce the amount of plastic bags used nationwide in no time :)
Link to site: http://www.grist.org/article/2010-10-08-plastic-bag-bans-sweep-cities-across-nation/
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