[Erin] Paper or...what was that, again?

As you've probably heard by now, the city of San Francisco has the interesting honor of becoming the first city in the United States to pass a ban on petroleum-based plastic bags at grocery stores. From now on, shoppers in San Francisco will be offered the choice between paper bags and biodegradable bags made either from corn or potato starch.

I still remember my parents' dislike of plastic grocery bags when they first came out: the groceries didn't remain upright in neat little stacks in the trunk of the car, but slid around and escaped their plastic confines. But gradually they, like most people, got used to the plastic bags, which in the long run were easier to dispose of, took up less space, and were less likely to come home from the store with more than your groceries in them.

Still, given worldwide concerns about the potential of future oil shortages, it may not be a terrible idea to begin phasing out the plastic grocery bags; however, I wonder if San Francisco is the best place to start.

For one thing, while grocery stores must comply with the new regulations, retail stores do not have to stop using the bags; in a city the size of San Francisco is targeting only the grocery stores going to make enough of an impact?

For another thing, this law will probably only affect the handful of San Francisco shoppers who don't already take their own reusable canvas totes to the grocery store with them; in fact, the new law requires grocery stores to offer for sale to consumers bags of this type.

I like the canvas tote idea, but realize that it's pretty difficult to use them if you have a larger family and can't stop by the organic market each night of the week to pick up only that evening's ingredients for supper. A family might have to purchase several of the totes in order to have enough of them to bring home the week's groceries, and families on tight food budgets are hardly going to do that.

But in our highly commercialized society, it's only going to take so long before an enterprising grocer decides to distribute, for free, reusable bags that proudly proclaim "I shop at Market X!" for his customers to carry--and after that, the only people paying for the bags are going to be the people who want to carry designer, customized grocery totes, that identify their carriers by political party, membership in non-profit organizations, church affiliation, club association and the like. (I'm envisioning one with a "Crunchy Con" inspired logo, and the words "I shop at green grocers" encircling it. The only drawback about having a crunchy shopping bag would be that it would be awfully hard to put the Moon Pies in it.)