Paper or plastic? Not anymore in San Francisco.

we don't have paper bags cos they are not very durable and heavy objects will tear them... my country is trying to do something to cut down the number of plastic bags. every first wednesday of the year is no plastic bag day for supermarkets. and if you use your own bag like i did on a normal day, i get 10 cents off my entire purchase. in ikea, they charge 10 cents for every plastic bag you take. every day. not just on certain days of the month.

whatever plastic bags we use for grocery, we use them for garbage. grocery stores give us green plastic bags we can use later for wet garbage. white we can use for garbage bins at home then put them all in one blue plastic bags for dry garbage. so we don't necessarily have plastic bags lying around. paper bags I think it's great idea. you can use it for other things later on, like lunch bags or if you cut them open you can use them as wrap when you move things.

yup if them made them out of something different than wood. but they have a draw back to they carry roaches grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

yea, and one of the reason i like to shop at aldi, i dunno if there is any in your state or not, but you got to bring your own bags in to use and that way it can be reuse again and again, instead of wasting more bags, and it hellp keep some of the cost down.

well of course the idea of decreasing the amount of plastic we use everyday is a great idea but I think we should consider the subject very carefully. I mean, we should prepare people to the law not only by giving shop owners good information but also finding firms producing good, strong and cheap paper bags..

People should just bring their own starch bags or a basket maybe specially when going to the grocery. That's what most people here in Germany does. They still have plastic bags at the cashier's but they are sold for a few cents. For those who have cars, they just use the shopping carts and then transfer all the stuffs to a basket in the trunk of their cars. Very practical isn't it? In department stores or boutiques, reusable paper shopping bags can be an alternative and they are even recyclable. When I went to London early this year there were a group of people who made an effort to convince people to use cloth bags that they made out of unused cloths. And what they did, they went to the streets and convince passersby to exchange their plastics bags with the cloth bags and collected all plastic bags to dispose them properly. That was also pretty good.

We don't have a ban here. I think before they should be able to enforce a ban like that, it should be everywhere.

No I love the plastic bags. I reuse them for cleaning the kitty litter out. I hope they dont banned them in my state. I prefer plastic over the paper bags.

This is one area where I feel The U.S is leading the way. I love the movies that show family shopping in brown paper bags. The problem is compounded a hundred times here in Asia - Thailand especialy has a major problem, not only with plastic bags, but also with polystryne food containers. Eating out is part of Thai culture, and everything comes in these containers, and that is usually placed in another plastic bag. Another problem is the number of plastic water bottles that are finding their way into landfills. I would like alternatives to all these problems that are going to be a major problem for the next generation.

I hate plastic bags. They are too thin and the checkers pack them too heavy so they always end up tearing before you can even put them in your car. Ask for double bagging and the checkers look at you like your evil. I switched stores just because of how much I hate plastic bags. I now shop only at Central Market or Whole Foods because they are the only places that still offer paper bags. I wouldn't mind plastic so much if they were stronger and people recycled them as they should.

We had the Superstore in our town "Go Green" at the beginning of the month. They no longer have plastic bags. Bring your own. They sold those bags made from recycled plastics for 50cents each for a month before and warned everyone. They also have plastic bins you can buy. Now that I am used to taking them I prefer them. You can actually put a carton of milk and other stuff in one without the handle ripping off half way to the car. I think they were the second store in BC to stop having plastic bags in the store. I guess eventually they will stop the plastic at all stores. I will miss them at home though as I use them for garbage bags!

Well I recycle and you have to recycle plastic in plastic, so if I have no plastic bags to recycle then how would I recycle plastic? I think if we can recycle stuff than it's okay to use it, not overuse... but use.

Hi polachicago! I think that law is good for all of us and i do hope that our country will also adopt such law. It will be very helpful to mother nature and if all of us will just cooperate then I think somehow we will eliminate a few problems in our environment. Take care and have a nice day. :)

hi there polachicago in Australia we use plastic bags or cotton bags but you need to buy them though and i dont use it but there is people who do and they are very strong bags i know plastic bags are easy to rip but i might need to think if i should get these stronger bags to put my grocers items in the more stronger bags they don't use paper vags anymore last time we used those i was only a kid i am 32 now so do you still use paper bags still i thought they have gone out of fashioned i might be wrong but here where i am we don't use paper bags anymore thanks for this discussion

I never did care for the idea of plastic bags to begin with. First unless you're carrying something really light, like a loaf of bread or eggs, one always has to have double bags, meaning more plastic bags being used. I at least recycle them...in a way by using them as garbage bags, but then that still isn't exactly environment friendly, but figure better that then just tossing them out. I always felt paper bags held more than plastic to begin with...I know because I was a checkout in a supermarket at one time. Some might kvetch of course since paper bags don't have handles, but they could start that don't you think the way they have those big paper bags at department stores?? Yes, would be a great idea to ban plastic bags everywhere