Honolulu is considering whether to become the final county in the state to approve a ban on free nonbiodegradable plastic bags being provided by large businesses, most notably supermarkets, to their customers. But an outright ban of plastic bags on Oahu may be too drastic at this point, which makes more palatable proposals in the state Legislature to impose a 10-cent fee for each single-use bag given, whether it be plastic or paper.

Maui and Kauai counties enacted plastic-bag bans last year. Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi has signed a ban that will take effect next year, and the Honolulu City Council is moving along a proposed ban on nonbiodegradable plastic bags just introduced on Wednesday.

The state bills, however, are preferable since they aim to change shoppers’ habits against careless use of plastic bags in order to aid the environment while also giving retailers a hand in absorbing costs. Under House Bill 2260 and Senate Bill 2511, the dime-per-plastic bag fee would largely go toward a fund for watershed protection, with up to 2 cents per to the retailer.

That means that a dime would be charged for each paper bag given to all neighbor island shoppers after Hawaii County joins the other counties in banning plastic bags. Supermarkets support the state legislation, which seems most suitable for Honolulu while the other counties put their plastic-bag bans to the test.

In 2007, San Francisco was the first city to ban plastic bags in shops, while paper bags were provided to shoppers without a fee assessed to them. Safeway spokeswoman Susan M. Houghton told a Hawaii House committee that Safeway saw its cost for paper bags grow by more than $1 million a year at its 15 stores in the city, without charging customers for paper bags.

Indeed, Robert D. Harris, director of the Sierra Club’s Hawaii chapter, told legislators that a supermarket can spend up to $6,000 a month "just to provide single-use bags to their customers at the check-out." Supermarkets and other retailers would be smart to offer discounts to customers who come with their own bags, but charging a fee for paper bags could have a similar effect.

The anti-plastic trend has spread to counter the occurrence of bags flying loose, polluting streams and coral reefs and getting eaten by birds and animals, including marine animals in Hawaii. The problem of small bags littering the environment is universally recognized. Thomas Bauwens, a spokesman for the trade group PlasticsEurope, blames the problem on "irresponsible littering and a lack of awareness as to the value of plastic bags."

The Hawaii Food Industry Association points out that paper bags are environmentally worse than plastic bags and cost as much as 10 times more than plastic bags purchased by stores. Most of the fee revenues from both plastic and paper bags by the Hawaii state legislation would go to needed watershed protection but the remainder appropriately would return to the businesses that buy the bags.

The purpose of the bills before the Legislature is to nudge consumers away from their reliance on throw-away plastic or paper bags offered free of charge by stores. In the long run, state or city anti-plastic-bag policies rightly aim to lead shoppers to eventually, by habit, use their own cloth or recyclable bags to carry merchandise from store to home.