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Los Angeles County supervisors approved a measure on Tuesday that bars stores in the unincorporated parts of the county from handing out single-use plastic bags. An estimated 1.1. million people live in those areas. The ordinance, which does not include Los Angeles and other cities in the county, also requires stores to charge 10 cents for each paper bag given to customers. It goes into effect next year. The California cities of Fairfax, Malibu, Palo Alto and San Francisco have also enacted such bans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A proposed 20-cent fee on plastic and paper bags at many retail stores in this city was headed for defeat in a voter referendum here late Tuesday. The proposal, which was intended to reduce pollution by encouraging reusable bags, was rejected as the debate over shopping bags has become prominent in several cities and states. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Come next Tuesday, in a move flagrantly timed to coincide with Earth Day, the Whole Foods supermarket chain will no longer offer its customers the plastic bag option. Seeing that ''it can take more than 1,000 years for a plastic bag to break down in a landfill'' and that ''in the U.S. alone, about 100 billion plastic bags are thrown away each year,'' the company said it could not in good conscience contribute to the crisis. Bravo. Now tell me this: What am I supposed to line my garbage cans with? I always use plastic supermarket bags, and the Whole Foods ones were by far my favorites -- roomy and springy enough to hold a lot of sodden waste without fear of breakage, always a plus when one is disposing of, say, fish skins or cat litter. So if I have to buy plastic bags by the box, that's better for the environment how? Forget about paper bags for this purpose. When we were growing up in the Bronx, my older brother recently reminded me, we lined our garbage can with newspapers, a solution satisfactory to none but the roaches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The cashier's chorus has long fallen on deaf ears among the sustainability set here. Paper or plastic? ''Neither'' is of course the greenest answer. Soon, however, ''neither'' may be the cheapest answer, too. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on the city of San Francisco, California banning the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by supermarkets, drug stores and retail stores. according to Environmental Protection Agency, the production of paper bags creates more air and water pollution as compared to plastic bags. It was also found that fewer plastic bags have been recycled in comparison with paper bags. It is estimated that annual global usage of plastic bags ranges from about 100 billion to 1 trillion.