The city of Frederick, Maryland, is banning businesses from giving out plastic bags starting in the new year.

Customers will have to bring their own bags to stores to shop for items like food, clothes and hardware starting Jan. 1, 2024. Businesses can offer paper bags as an alternative.

The city said that the goal of the plastic bag ban is to improve the environment of Frederick and safeguard the health of residents “by reducing the number of single use plastic bags in the stream of commerce, litter, pollution, waste and to encourage the use of reusable bags.”

Frederick’s decision is in alignment with a statewide effort to ban plastic bags.

In June, lawmakers in Anne Arundel County ordered a similar ban on plastic bags at grocery stores. That law will go into effect in January as well.

Prince George’s County Council also passed a bill in May that would ban plastic bags and add a 10-cent fee for each paper bag used at retail stores across the county.