For Oahu retailers, a key part of the business practice — packing up the merchandise sold — is about to change. At least one of them has been in rehearsal for the change for some time.

Drew Santos is the manager of Kailua’s new Target store, which opened in March. Because the city’s new plastic ban was slated to begin only a few months later, July 1, executives figured they’d plunge right in. None of the flimsy bags so commonly in use are found at the checkstand, where instead shoppers are asked if they need to buy one of the woven reusable bags sold for 99 cents, or have brought their own.

Shoppers have been largely receptive, Santos said: Most of the Kailuans involved in community meetings about the new store were inclined toward "green" policies, anyway.

"We do have those individuals who could be a little shocked that we are completely bagless, but we accommodate them as best we can." So far, Target hasn’t exercised the option to stock paper bags, he added, "but we’re more than willing to help them carry out their groceries."

Although recent mainland protests over plastic bag bans suggest the prospect of resistance here, few among those watching the issue carefully believe that’s going to happen. Adrian Hong is president of Island Plastic Bags, which is the only Hawaii-based manufacturer of the ubiquitous "T-shirt" bags, the thin types that are so commonly used at supermarkets and elsewhere.

Hong noted that there was a lot of retailer pushback — before the main ordinance was enacted in 2012, and again last year, when an amendment removing biodegradable bags as an alternative option was also passed. There could be an opportunity to restore that option in future years, he said, but that’s about it.

"I don’t really see anyone repealing this on Oahu," he added. "It’s gone through two iterations, and I don’t think there’s any energy left to revisit this. It’s a reality."

Honolulu is the last of Hawaii’s counties to put a plastic bag ban into effect. It applies to most establishments that are not in the prepared-foods category — takeout food containers will still be seen carried out of eateries in the so-called "single-use" bags.

The impact is on stores that sell clothing, sundry items and, most significantly, grocery items. The lightweight plastic bags issued freely at supermarkets have piled up in car trunks and kitchens, and are returned to the store for recycling or reused for household purposes.

But some of them do fly away, and the resulting litter is seen as one more thing compounding the islands’ waste stream and ending up as marine pollution, endangering ocean life. Scholars here and elsewhere have published paper after paper on the subject, fueling a drive to reduce plastic packaging and leading to a series of laws curbing the use of plastic bags.

In California, cross-currents on the issue have clashed. First, the Huntington Beach City Council voted last month to rescind its year-old bag ban, which proved controversial and propelled the chief advocate for repeal into office.

In Sacramento, lawmakers passed a statewide ban, but a largely industry-driven campaign garnered signatures in protest. The result: The proposal to ban plastic bags will now be decided by referendum in November 2016.

Finally, at the end of April, Arizona state lawmakers have taken the opposite tack from their California counterparts, passing legislation to prohibit cities from enacting plastic bag bans.

Arizona is not alone. Other conservative states have made similar moves: Florida already has banned the municipal bag bans in that state, and the same approach is being contemplated in Missouri and Texas.

The question arises: What is going on here? Richard Frank is director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center at the University of California-Davis School of Law. It’s not a reversal of public opinion, Frank said: It’s an attempt by the plastic bag industry to stall for time.

"I think the industry is pushing back and pursuing a legal strategy to fend off as long as possible," Frank said. "Delay works to their advantage and allows them to continue manufacturing for as long as possible."

The California law, enacted in September, was due to kick in the same day as the Oahu ban, July 1. Forcing a referendum enables continued sales for 16 more months, Frank said.

He pointed to "scores of California municipalities" that have enacted bans independently, adding that the number of those continue to increase.

However, said Huntington Beach Councilman Mike Posey, the ban "lit the flame" for him to seek election in 2012, adding that the ordinance foisted a "paternalism" that he found intolerable. The city’s law also dictated a 10-cent price for the sale of the single-use bags for anyone who wanted one.

"Government’s province is not to ban a legal product," Posey said. "It shouldn’t be setting prices for any product at all."

Ostensibly adopted as environmental protection, the measure hasn’t had any effect on area beaches, which didn’t have a litter problem in the first place, he added. And, he said, both the substitution of paper bags and the necessity to wash the reusable types wastes more water.

"I oppose it from an economics standpoint," Posey said. "And why should we stop at plastic bags? Why not ban disposable, it’s a biohazard."

In Honolulu, it was clearly the concern about environment, and the limited landfill space, that spurred final passage of Bill 10 in 2012. The preamble to the measure cited Environmental Protection Agency estimates that plastics now comprise 12 percent of the municipal waste stream, up dramatically from 1960, when it was less than 1 percent of the volume.

Of course, plastic bags are only one element of the American throwaway culture, but advocates for policies reducing their use point to the resulting marine pollution in which disposable bags are a factor. At the public hearings on the bill, Rachel Harvey submitted testimony for the Kailua chapter of Plastic Free Hawaii, listing among the impacts the disintegration of the thin bags into particles that marine animals ingest, and the accumulation of refuse in the infamous Pacific "garbage patch."

The hidden costs consumers pay for their "free" bags include the expense of added garbage cleanup, she said.

"The taxpayer cost to subsidize the recycling, collection and disposal of plastic bags is often more than the cost of the bag," Harvey said.

This is a point of contention in the continuing, if sublimated, community debate. Island Plastic Bags executive Hong said retailers will be stocking alternative bags allowed by the statute (see related story on this page). Where the T-shirt bags covered by the ban had a unit price of about 2 cents, he said, the permitted alternatives cost roughly five times as much for the retailer.

"People are going to realize what this is going to cost them," Hong added. "They’re not going to eat a five-times increase, so they’re going to pass that cost along."

Sheri Sakamoto, Retail Merchants of Hawaii, agreed with that assessment. The association and other business groups had pressed instead for a regulation to incentivize shoppers to bring their own bags by allowing retailers to charge a fee for disposable bags.

Further, she said in response to an email inquiry, businesses would have preferred at least a uniform, statewide regulation to the patchwork quilt now in place.

"Each county created their own ordinance, which does not reflect a uniform set of standards," Sakamoto said. "Thus, this has caused many of our retailers to create various types of vehicles for customers to transport their purchases out of the store."

Ultimately, it would seem the success or failure of plastic bag bans will depend on the ability of consumers to change their habitual use of disposables when they go shopping.

In California, Frank is banking on the trend lines continuing in the pro-environment direction, adding that even some of the retailer opposition has "melted away."

Posey said he’ll wait for the November 2016 referendum to deliver the verdict.

"If the voters decide they need parenting," he said, "and they need the bag ban to show them how to dispose of them appropriately, so be it."