Maui County banned the use of plastic bags in department and grocery stores as of 1-11-11. The ban may seem inconvenient, but there are options to adjust to the change:

Many stores will provide recyclable paper bags for free or for a charge up to $.25 per bag.

Stores, like Safeway, sell reusable bags from $.99 to $2.99.

For local Maui residents, stores may start incentive programs to get their customers to use reusable bags such as:

Promotion programs i.e. bring in your own bags with each visit and get a stamp per visit with an award (gift item) for X number of stamps.

Purchase discounts for customers who use their own bags (word on the street is $.03 to $.05).

While getting used to the bag ban may take a few trips to the grocery store, ultimately we will look back on the days when we used plastic bags as the dark ages. The environmental impacts of reducing the use of plastic bags go something like this: reducing a contribution to unsightly litter, reducing space burdens in landfills, reducing likeliness of death to marine animals through ingestion or entanglement, and reducing the millions of barrels of crude oil needed to manufacture these bags!

For more information on the Maui Plastic Bag Ban please read the Maui Weekly Bag Ban Editorial and visit MauiCounty.org.

If you are interested in particularly affordable real estate opportunities, we recommend a look at REO condos in West Maui. On the other hand, if you are interested in new developments on Maui, we recommend a look at Honua Kai resort and spa. Remember that you can always use our Maui real estate search tool if you want to look based on your own criteria. If you need any assistance, please find our contact information at the bottom of the page. Mahalo!