Could New Jersey see the end of plastic shopping bags and other single-use plastic items?

A bill in the state Legislature could ban those items statewide, in an attempt to limit trash and protect state waterways.

Several towns in the state have already banned the use of plastic shopping bags locally in an attempt to prevent these items from ending up in the state’s waterways.

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Monmouth Beach is the latest town to issue the ban. Lawmakers passed an ordinance Tuesday evening to ban plastic bags, Styrofoam food containers and plastic straws.

News 12 New Jersey’s Brian Donohue took a walk along the Raritan Bay in Union Beach and found plastic bags and plastic bottle caps all along the shoreline, having washed up in the tide. Donohue says that the bay acts like a giant funnel and says that trash that is in the water as far away as Albany, New York, can find its way to the shoreline.

The latest issue of “National Geographic” says that 18 billion pounds of plastic winds up in oceans every year. The trash is also blamed for the deaths of certain ocean wildlife.