The average American family brings home 1,000-1,500 plastic bags each year. The average usage of the bags is 12 minutes. Over 500 million straws per day are thrown away in the US.

We are deeply concerned that the pollution crisis is creating environmental degradation and a global climate change. The overuse of single use plastic bags and straws needs to be curtailed in order to reduce the dependence on non-renewable and petroleum based products that don't decompose. The time is now to take action and reduce our usage.

The best way to do that is to create a bill or an Executive Order to discontinue their use in stores and shops, and encourage reusable bags. Many states have joined in and have been successful such as Maine, New Jersey, California, and Hawaii as well as dozens of cities and countries. We can do this by working together. Please enact legislation now to ensure a better today and future for all of us.

To implement a ban would have a positive effect on the environment and our economy. Here are the reasons why:

1. Many of those bags don't even make it to the garbage, they are blown away in the wind ending up on trees, in the streets, down drains that go to lakes/oceans. The bags pollute our water and our land.

2. Plastic bags never degrade. Instead of the plastic degrading, it is broken down into small tiny pieces microplastics which are swept down and end up in the oceans which are then consumed by wildlife, go into water streams and settle into the earth.

3. All of the materials are non-renewable fossil fuel-based materials and through their extraction and even production, greenhouse gases are created which further contribute to global climate change.

4. The total amount of energy required to drive a car for 0.5 miles is the equivalent energy required to produce nine plastic bags.

5. The plastic bag waste is impacting the environment negatively and contributing to making the Great Pacific garbage patch bigger every minute.

6. Other countries and states are successful in their plastic bag bans such as China where they banned plastic bags and four years later, the amount of plastic bags thrown into the environment had reduced by 40 billion.

7. Banning plastic bags helps save money. These plastics cost a lot of money because the final costs account for the total production costs from their manufacture using petroleum to when they will be thrown away.

8. New materials would have to be created with a ban and that opens up new opportunities for industry and manufacturing to create and produce eco-friendly and greener materials.