With the start of the New Year, national retailer Walmart has decided to start bagging all of the single-use plastic bags at the registers in its stores located in New York, Connecticut, and Colorado.

Many states are beginning to crack down on the use of plastics as the "go green" initiative starts to pick up more and more steam across the nation.

Dakota News Now is reporting the recent move made by Walmart in states like New York, Connecticut, and Colorado is designed to stay ahead of legislation being created to help out the environment.

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Best Life reports that ten states across the nation have now started to pass laws that begin banning or restricting the use of plastic bags. California was the first to kick the plastic bag to the curb (so to speak), they begin back in 2016. Other states followed including Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, New York, Oregon, and New Jersey. The state of Colorado will officially climb on board the plastic bag ban train starting on January 1st of 2024.

Will South Dakota soon follow?

Not likely.

States like South Dakota which are governed by Republicans have been slower to adopt policies being created to help combat climate change. Therefore retailers like Walmart are making it less of a priority to bag single-use plastic bags at this time in conservative-leaning states like South Dakota.

Now that plastic shopping bags are starting to be phased out, you're probably wondering, okay, now what are we supposed to use?

Walmart has you covered. In states where they have already made the move to ban plastic bags, Walmart is allowing shoppers to bring their own reusable bags, or guess what, you can buy reusable bags right at the register for under a buck.

According to Dakota News Now, Americans use roughly 100 billion plastic bags every year, and only 10% of those get recycled. Hence the move to more environmentally friendly measures.

Source: Dakota News Now