“Honor” Limbaugh: Pass the Bag Fee Bill.

Girl Scout, Diana Sellner helps make lei out of plastic bags to present to legislators. She chose to support the Bag Fee bill as community service to earn her Gold Badge.

Radio Station KPUA on the Big Island was the first radio station in the U.S. to drop Rush Limbaugh — and they did it with class and clarity. Now Hawaii legislators can follow this brave effort to lead the nation in getting rid of offensive wind bags by passing the throwaway bag fee bill. In so doing they will make Hawaii the first state in the U.S. to take that important step towards combating the pollution caused by plastic and paper bags entering our waterways. It will also help save marine life and seabirds that either get entangled in the plastic or ingest pieces of the bags as they fall apart, mistaking it for food.

This kind of pollution which then enters our food stream is as toxic as the kind dispensed by Limbaugh. Thankfully, it is a problem that may be easier to address than the climate of the times that allows a Limbaugh to profit from his poison.

A good part of the revenue collected when the bag fee law is passed will go towards watershed protection. And that means more jobs as well.

It isn’t often we get a law that rallies all sectors of the community, the young and the old, businesses and the environmentalists, students and their teachers and a broad spectrum of professionals. Every check-out clerk at Safeway and Long’s whose offer of a plastic bag I decline, explaining why I do so, smiles their support and says: “I can’t wait for the day we stop giving out these bags.”

WRITE TO YOUR LEGISLATORS NOW!

Hogan Entrepreneurs,ecology class students and members of the Civic Engagement Club at Chaminade University joined many others to make plastic bag lei for the lawmakers.

If you care about the future health of these incredible islands and about taking steps to ensure that we have water to sustain life on these islands for generations to come, please write to sens@capitol.hawaii.gov and reps@capitol.hawaii.gov

Tell your legislators to please seize this moment to show the nation that Hawaii is as serious about getting rid of throwaway bags as we are about silencing offensive windbags.