WAILUKU, Maui — The Maui County Council yesterday passed a law prohibiting stores and other businesses from providing plastic shopping bags, the first such ban in the state.

The law takes effect Jan. 11, 2011, to give businesses time to use up their plastic bag supplies.

Maui Councilman Mike Molina of Makawao, who introduced the proposal, said the "landmark" legislation would benefit the environment and county taxpayers, who are spending nearly $200,000 annually for a contractor to pick up stray bags blowing around the Central Maui Landfill.

"It's high time we pay more attention to our Earth. This is a global movement," Molina said.

The new ordinance notes that plastic bags cause unsightly litter and require crude oil for manufacture. When they blow into the ocean, marine animals can ingest the bags or become entangled in them.

Warren McCord of the Maui Outdoor Circle, which supported the ban, said the plastic bag problem is acute because of the island's strong trade winds.

"The plastic bags are put into the dump and then they just blow all the way across the Valley Isle. It's a mess," he said.

San Francisco last year became the first American city to impose a ban on plastic shopping bags, with many other jurisdictions following suit. Los Angeles recently passed a similar ordinance and even China is taking action, prohibiting shops throughout the country from giving out free plastic bags.

In Hawai'i, a bag ban was introduced in the Honolulu City Council last November and was deferred to the Planning and Sustainability Committee, with no further action taken to date.

City recycling coordinator Suzanne Jones said the situation in Honolulu is different from Maui, where wind-blown trash from the landfill is a particular problem. In Honolulu, plastic bags and other rubbish are burned in the H-POWER waste-to-energy plant.

The Hawai'i County Council is close to approving its own plastic bag ban, while recycling officials on Kaua'i are focusing on providing consumers with an alternative to plastic, said solid-waste program coordinator Allison Fraley.

Using money from the bottle-deposit program, the county distributed 2,000 reusable shopping bags and plans to give away 10,000 more, she said.

On the state level, a proposal to ban nonbiodegradable plastic bags and polystyrene foam takeout food containers met with lukewarm support at the Legislature this year and did not advance.

Carol Pregill, president of Retail Merchants of Hawaii, said there is good reason to resist the call for a ban on plastic bags.

She said it will have unintended consequences for consumers, including higher costs at the checkout stand as businesses pass along higher shipping costs for bulkier paper bags. According to Pregill, it takes seven truckloads of paper bags to carry the same number of plastic bags in a single truckload.

Consumer acceptance is another issue, she said.

"It's going to take quite some time to get everyone to use (reusable bags), and to expect people to leave the house and remember to bring five to six of those bags is just not practical."

Pregill also noted that people reuse their plastic bags for myriad purposes, and that paper bags don't work well for carrying leaky plate lunches, dry cleaning, potting soil, hardware items and other goods.

"The issue of banning plastic is emotional and it sounds good, but when you drill it through to a practical use in our society, it's kind of a problem," Pregill said. "People use it to pick up dog poop — what's your alternative, newspaper? That's just gross. Plastic bags are very practical in our busy lives."

The merchants group, the Hawaii Food Industry Association and other business organizations favor expanding anti-litter programs that push the "reduce, reuse, recycle" message.

Under the new Maui ordinance, both compostable and noncompostable plastic bags not specifically designed for multiple use are prohibited, leaving recyclable paper and reusable bags as acceptable alternatives.

Recyclable paper bags must be 100 percent recyclable, contain a minimum of 40 percent post-consumer recycled content and display the words "reusable" and "recyclable" on the outside of the bag.

Reusable bags must be made of cloth or some other durable material designed for multiple use.

Violators of the bag ban face administrative fines of up to $1,000.