In an editorial on the show on Wednesday night, written by host Waleed Aly and The Project's managing editor Tom Whitty, state premiers were urged to have the courage to ban the bags to save the environment.

Aly, a Fairfax Media columnist, challenged NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Victorian Premer Daniel Andrews, and WA Premier Mark McGowan to step up.

"A Senate Inquiry into marine plastic pollution from last year recommended the federal government support the states to ban plastic bags," Aly said.

"Unless we give them a push, nothing will change, and you and I will keep using plastic bags. But we can change this. You can change this. So now's the time to be heard."

Clean Up Australia, a national not-for-profit organisation that organises the annual Clean Up Australia Day, has endorsed the push.

If the states agree, there will effectively be nationwide ban on single-use plastic bags - South Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory and the ACT have already banned them, while Queensland plans to ban them from next year.

Viewers have been urged to sign a Change.org petition to show their support for a ban, as well as writing to each state premier. The petition attracted almost 6000 signatures in half an hour.

A similar petition calling for plastic bags to be banned in NSW, launched in February, attracted more than 15,000 signatures.

Aly said each plastic bag is used for an average of 12 minutes - then up to 6 billion each year are thrown into landfill across Australia, where they will take hundreds of years to break down.

Terrie-Ann Johnson, managing director of Clean Up Australia, said people don't really think about the environmental impact of plastic bags.

"It's really frustrating because these things are having an enormous impact on the environment. They're killing our precious wildlife. We don't need plastic bags," she told The Project.

???"Let's put aside landfill for a minute and think about the 80 million plastic bags that end up in our litter stream. Think about the poor animal in the marine environment that chokes or it starves because it's got a gutful of non-nutritious material. It's a horrible, horrible death.

"Internationally, Australia is really lagging behind the rest of the world."

China, Taiwan, France, Italy, The Netherlands and Kenya are among other countries which have already banned plastic bags.

Federal environment minister Josh Frydenberg told The Project he supported all states introducing a ban, while supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths said they would comply with such a ban.

Aly urged viewers to sign the petition, tweet the premiers, and "email them, call them, hit them up on their Facebook pages".

"Show them that there's plenty of political goodwill in having the courage to ban the bag," Aly said.

"And we'll all wait and see who will lead the way. NSW, Victoria or WA? Who's going to ban the bag first?"