Grocery stores: the places we go to and use our hard earned cash to buy the food we need. How does one carry the food out? Why plastic bags of course. Oh wait, we have to pay for those as well just because we didn’t bring reusable bags. But when you think about it, forcing customers to buy plastic bags is a smart way to protect the environment, since consumers will feel more inclined to buy reusable bags to save money.

Plastic, in its many forms, can pollute the ecosystem and our water. Now, when you leave a plastic bag outside in the wind can blow it away. Not something that seems dangerous right? Wrong! That bag can get to any place that the wind blows it, like the forest were any animal could find it. When that happens, the bag can get around the head and suffocate the animal? These bags may kill off the predators needed to keep the numbers of each species under control. Plastic bags can also find their way into the ocean and not only suffocate small or medium fish but blind the larger fish, driving them into say a boat propeller or sharp rocks.

Now many states have instituted laws, fees, and bans on the use of plastic bags in the grocery stores established there. Hawaii has, in fact, implemented a state-wide ban on plastic bags as well as paper bags that have less than 40% recycled material. In 12 different cities including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco they either have a ban on plastic bags or a fee to use them.

I see the banning and requirement of a fee to the use of plastic bags as a new way to keep our ecosystems healthy. Help out by picking up any bags you see on the ground or around children. Be sure to invest in reusable bags. They’re better to use and safer.