In recent years grass roots efforts have sprung up across the country aimed at reducing or banning outright the consumption of single use plastic bags. San Francisco was the first U.S. City to pass legislation limiting the usage of plastic bags, since then nearly a dozen California cities and towns have followed San Francisco's lead.

There are some who feel that the movement to ban single use plastic bags is just so much eco-hype. The movie "Bag It" starts out as a light-hearted look at the subject of plastic bags and the efforts to ban them but it became a startling look at plastic and its long term effects on our waterways, our oceans, and our own bodies.

The average American uses over 500 plastic bags every year. These bags are used for an average of twelve minutes before being discarded. Less than 3% of those plastic bags will make it to the recycling center. Landfills are overflowing with plastic bags. Even more troubling the plastics we throw away today will be a part of our world for a few hundred years to come.

Recycling is part of the solution but most plastic bags never make it as far as the landfill or the recycling center. Those that are left to their own devices wander around clogging drainage systems, entangling themselves in vegetation, and eventually to our waterways. Ten percent of the nearly 4 millions tons of plastic bags and film wrap produced annually it is believed to end up in our oceans and streams. The heavier pieces of plastic sink to the bottom where they are unlikely to break down of their own accord. The lighter pieces, like plastic bags, tend to float near the surface often being mistaken for natural food sources.

In the oceans and on land, animals all over the world are being affected by increasing amounts of plastics invading their habitats. A Google search for the keywords "animals plastic in stomach" reveals enough different species of animals killed by plastic ingestion to fill any ark. Gray whales, alligators, calves, turtles, birds, and even camels have been found dead, stomachs filled with plastic bags. What animals eat makes it back into our food sources as well.

Plastic bags have only been around for 25 years or so, and a time is now here where we must ask ourselves, can the planet handle another 25 years of single use plastic bags?

Laws can only go so far. In the end it is up to you.

Reduce, reuse, recycle... and refuse.

Refuse to accept plastics as an inevitable part of modern living.