The US goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually at an estimated cost to retailers of $4 billion.
The extremely slow decomposition rate of plastic bags leaves them to drift on the ocean for untold years. These plastic bags cause the death of many marine animals.
We must discourage the distribution of plastic bags with a tax and a cultural shift away from use-and-toss plastic bags:
In 2001, Ireland implemented a plastic tax; the first of its kind, this route acknowledges the fact that people will still occasionally use plastic bags. This market-based solution discourages thoughtless use of plastic bags by charging a nominal fee per bag at checkout. A study by the Irish Department of the Envir. found that plastic bag usage had dropped 93.5%.