Proposition 67 has officially passed in California, meaning everyone must pay 10 cents per plastic bag when shopping at large retail stores—and many people are upset about it.

California became the first state to enact the new proposition in 2014, but has not gone into full effect until recently. The measure is officially called, "California Plastic Bag Ban Veto Referendum".

States like Illinois, Massachusetts, Arizona, New York and Rhode Island are also considering the adopted legislation regarding plastic bag waste.

According to The National Conference of State Legislatures, “Only 3 states—Arizona, Idaho and Missouri— have enacted legislation this year, all of which preempt local governments from regulating the sale or use of plastic bags, including the imposition of any fees or taxes”.

Many states, as of 2017 are slowly imposing Proposition 67 in an attempt to help save the environment from plastic bag waste.

So far, stores such as Target, Vons, Albertsons, Trader Joe’s and Walmart have adopted the ban, and charge the 10 cents per bag.

Approximately, 100 billion plastic grocery bags are thrown away into the environment by Americans. Not only do Americans participate in the waste of plastic bags, but on average, each American family can use almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year.

As seen in the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP) , scientists have estimated that “every square mile of ocean contains about 46,000 pieces of floating plastic”.

Thousands of marine animals are constant threatened due to the amount of plastic found in the ocean. These animals can choke or entangle themselves in the plastic that society throws away into the environment so freely.

Since the proposition has gone into effect, there have been many opposing opinions on whether grocery store consumers should be taxed on their bags.

For some, a 10 cent plastic bag tax sounds ridiculously inconvenient since its a given benefit to regular taxpayers, for others the bag tax is a sign of positive environmental change in America.

Converting from plastic bags to reusable bags can be a hard transition to remember, but luckily many retail stores and websites like Amazon and Walmart, sell cheap reusable bags for purchase.

Hopefully, with California’s lead, other states will continue to follow in the fight for saving the environment.

For more information regarding State Legislation on Plasitc Bags, visit the National Conference Of State Legislatures site.