Ah, yes---those wonderful days of yore, when condensation from frozen products weakened the paper, and the bottom dropped out as you were trying to get from car to house. Or, when the extremely weak paper bag "just tore" and accomplished the same spillage of groceries.
No thinks, I prefer plastic. And if you actually look into the statistics, plastic bags are "less bad" for the environment because they take less energy to make, and take up less space in the landfill.
This is just one more attempt to introduce "Euro-think" into the US.
My favorite ‘plastic or paper’ story is what occured to me and my kids some 18yrs ago on a quick run in the store for a gallon of milk, a bunch of bananas and a package of (horrors!) disposible diapers. At the checkout, the dingy cashier put the bananas in one of those hated/disgusting plastic bags and basically turned her back to us, sighing like her job was just so stressful she now needed a nap. I looked at the milk -with a handle, the diapers -with a handle, the bag of bananas -with a flimsy handle, and my less than a year old son -no handle. The well behaved daughter of about 6 could be trusted to hold onto the shouldered purse strap and stick with me. Yes, I could have grabbed a cart put everything in it (I had used one of their little hand held baskets that she then confiscated from me) and wheeled it out to the car, then wheeled the cart back to the store (no cart returns then and I always brought my cart back) then carried my not quite toddler back to the car as my daughter trudged carefully along with me(I never put my kids in until I was ready to get in and drive off), but I just saw red. I knew it could be done if the silly girl had a brain in her head. I tried not to snap her head off and REQUESTED one of those horrid paper bags. She gives me this ‘who do you think you are’ look, but coughs one up. I put the milk in the bottom, stood the diaper pack on it’s end and slid it in, then dropped the bananas (after taking it out of that silly plastic bag- leaving it laying for her to deal with)on top of the milk. I grabed the STURDY bag in the crook of my free arm, told Steph to grab onto my purse, looked (I’m sure with some disgust) at the girl and told her, “I have two kids and two arms, not five.” She just looked confused. I knew then that she’d never get it...