Not the legislatures concern.
This year's bill to ban plastic shopping bags in Washington State "got a good hearing in the House Environment Committee," says sponsor Joe Fitzgibbon (D-34). But then it went nowhere.

"Folks just didn’t feel like we were ready to have a statewide ban," Fitzgibbon tells me.

Was the plastic bag lobby the problem?

“Certainly the plastic bag manufacturers don’t want a ban," Fitzgibbon says. "But I think a lot of folks just haven’t heard from their constituents that it’s a problem yet. Frankly, even in Seattle a lot of people aren’t aware of the problems plastic bags cause. That’s something we need to do a better job of educating people about before we have a statewide ban.”

The one thing going for an eventual statewide law: The patchwork of bag bans that's now coming together as various cities and counties in the state enact their own bag regulations. At some point, Fitzgibbon suggests, that patchwork might become so confusing that everyone on all sides will want a uniform statewide law.

(Rob Krehbiel, of Environment Washington, says four parts of the state should join the bag ban push soon. "Issaquah, Bainbridge Island, Port Townsend, and the San Juan Islands are (at least by my projections) all expected to have bag bans by May," he tells me.)