In the recent gubernatorial debate, Governor Jerry Brown said that he will sign a bill to ban plastic bags in California.

Californians Against Waste is an environmentalist group that claims California spends several million dollars on the cleanup of plastic bags, every year. The bags are a threat to marine life that ingests them, mistaking them for floating jellyfish.

Brown stated, “I’ll tell you why I’m going to sign it…There are about 50 cities with their own plastic bag ban, and that’s causing a lot of confusion.”

Republicans and manufacturers of plastic bags argue that the ban sacrifices jobs. But to counteract that downfall is a provision for $2 million dollars in loans and grants dedicated to the retraining of workers and adaptation of reusable bag production.

The Bill will make it illegal for large pharmacies and grocery stores to use plastic bags starting the first of July, 2015, and is set to include convenience stores by 2016, according to sources at the Associated Press.

The bill was amended enough to gain the support of The United Food and Commercial Workers Union who had originally pulled their support. The amendment included allowing grocers to charge $0.10 cents or more for reusable bags.

While protestors of the bill don’t like the idea of negatively impacted job availability, it is hard to argue with the $2 million dollar compromise which allows for the needs of both the environment and economy to be simultaneously met.

The famous grocer question, ‘paper or plastic?’ may soon be obsolete.