single-use bag ordinances

The island of Maui, in the state of Hawaii, voted in August 2008 to pass a bag ban, which went into effect January 11, 2011. Although the island was the first in the state to ban the bag, it gave retailers additional time to phase out plastic bags and stock up on reusables.

The ban (read full text here) prohibits any business, not just supermarkets, from using plastic bags.

In November 2005 France's national government passed a plastic bag ban effective as of 2010. Although earlier versions of the proposed ban would have also included plastic packaging, the final ban, which passed unanimously, is limited solely to plastic bags.

In 2008, the territory of Canberra, in Australia, began a 12-month trial of a plastic bag tax. Though the trial worked well to reduce the use of plastic bags, there were complications over the handling of revenues from the tax, and so the government moved in late 2010 to impose a territory-wide ban.

In September 2008, the government of Buenos Aires province (a territory separate from Buenos Aires city but accounting for about 37% of the Argentina's population) approved a law to ban shops and supermarkets from giving away polyethylene plastic bags in its territory.

In March 2002, Bangladesh slapped an outright ban on all polythene bags after they were found to have been the main culprit during the 1988 and 1998 floods that submerged two-thirds of the country. The Bangladesh ban was the first nationwide ban on plastic bags in the world. It has successfully cleaned up the streets and drains of the country, while stimulating a re-birth of the jute bag industry.

Ajman, one of the United Arab Emirates, in 2010 became the first emirate in the country to enforce the plastic bag ban set to be enforced throughout the emirates by 2012.

The ban was executed via a municipal order issued by Sheikh Rashid bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, Chairman of the Ajman Department of Municipality and Planning.

Cloth or jute bags have replaced plastic bags in the emirate. Those flouting the order face fines up to Dh50,000.