 Landfill clogger or forest decimator? How many times have you faced this conundrum: Plastic or paper? Choose plastic and you feel as if you’re contributing to the creation of a huge mound at the local landfill with bits of plastic poking from the sides. But if you choose paper, won’t you be responsible for decimating forests? Relax. You may soon have a better, more eco-friendly option, and the end of your grocer’s checkout line may never look the same again. The city of San Francisco wants to be the vanguard of a movement to ban plastic grocery bags—unless they’re biodegradable. Evidently, the denizens of San Francisco have seen one too many plastic bags blowing down the street and witnessed too much of their marine life entangled in a plastic-chokehold of death. San Francisco will require grocery and drug stores to offer recyclable paper, biodegradable plastic, or the reusable cloth bag. I know that more and more locations are selling the cloth bags—and getting free advertising from their logo plastered on the side. And with grocers complaining that these newer, biodegradable bags are more costly, a reusable cloth just might make the most sense for everyone. I personally prefer a cloth grocery bag, which I purchased for a few dollars last year. You don’t have to worry about burst bags or accumulating all those bags in a kitchen cupboard somewhere. If I forget my bag, where I shop, we get charged 10 cents for a biodegradable paper bag—which I’ll then reuse. Just makes good common sense, doesn’t it?  
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