American Samoa, a U.S. territory, will soon make it illegal for stores to hand out plastic shopping bags — a step that California rejected earlier this week.
Gov. Togiola Tulafono, who signed the ban into law last week, says it will help protect American Samoa’s natural beauty, reports the Associated Press. Its supporters say plastic bags, taking up to 1,000 year to decompose, pollute the ocean and entangle sea life.
The law, which takes effect Feb. 23, exempts shopping bags produced entirely from non-petroleum-based biodegradable plastic and compostable plastic bags.
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Other countries, including South Africa, Ireland, China and Bangladesh, have discouraged plastic bag use through fees or bans, according to the AP. But in the United States, such action has occurred only at the local level.
San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic grocery bags in 2007 and several other California cities — Palo Alto, Malibu, Fairfax — have since followed. North Carolina banned single-use plastic and non-recyclable bags last year in the Outer Banks. In January, Washington, D.C., began requiring grocery stores to charge a nickel for disposable grocery bags.
On Tuesday night, the California Senate voted down a plastic bag ban that had passed the Assembly in June and drew praise from GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill, fiercely opposed by the plastic bag manufacturing industry, would have barred grocery stores, large pharmacies and retailers such as Target and Walmart that sell food from offering plastic bags starting in 2012.
