It’s official: Hawaii will never feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind ever again.
That’s right – Hawaii is the first state in America to ban plastic bags from grocery stores. On June 30, the island of Oahu finally declared that it will ban the bags from being available at checkout, making it the last of the 8 islands to do so.
Gif courtesy of mashable.com
Why is Hawaii the first state to do this? Well, probably because it’s next door neighbor is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: an island of plastic debris about the size of Texas at its core, floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Photo courtesy of coastalcare.org
It’s pretty nasty stuff, and sometimes it hits a little too close to home.
Photo courtesy of huffingtonpost.com
Clearly, Hawaii is over it.
The best part? This is just the beginning. By creating this ban, Hawaii set a precedent that hopefully the rest of country will soon follow. Exciting stuff, right? At least environmentalists and wildlife think so.
Sorry Katy, but Hawaii no longer can relate.