Bring your own bag or pay a fee.

If a new bill passes, California will require retailers to charge 15 cents for one-time use plastic shopping bags.

"Assembly Bill 2058 would set a goal of 70 percent waste reduction for plastic bags and require retailers to charge an ‘advance disposal fee’ of not less than 15 cents per bag if waste reduction benchmarks are not achieved," writes Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste (CAW).

"California uses about 19 billion plastic and 3.8 billion paper bags annually," he says.

"The cost to retailers of providing these 'free' bags to consumers is about $680 million annually, and, like other overhead costs, is passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices on the products we buy."

And taxpayers ultimately pay for "cleaning up the more than 95 percent of one-time use plastic bags that become litter or are landfilled," Murray says.

It costs San Franciscans approximately 17 cents per littered bag, according to an analysis by the San Francisco Department of the Environment.

"The 'free' one-time use bag is actually costing in excess of $300 per household annually in higher costs and taxes," Murray says.

Last month, San Francisco became the first and only U.S. city to ban plastic grocery bags in large supermarkets.

"Under the legislation, which passed 10-1 in the first of two votes, large markets and pharmacies will have the option of using compostable bags made of corn starch or bags made of recyclable paper," the San Franciso Chronicle says.

The CAW sponsored bill by Assembly Member Lloyd Levine follows suit.

Follow the leader

Whole Foods charges 99 cents for reusable bags 80% made from recycled plastic bottles. They also offer patrons a 10 cent discount off the grocery bill for bringing in their own bags.

"While Whole Foods is tiny compared with the rest of the retail grocery industry, its role as a trendsetter is huge," USA Today says. "Whole Foods' success played a major role in nudging top supermarket chains to sell organic foods."

In January, the retailer announced their plan to stop offering disposable, plastic grocery bags in all 270 stores in the USA, Canada and United Kingdom by Earth Day.

"That means roughly 100 million plastic bags will be kept out of the environment between that date and the end of 2008," the company tells USA Today.

"Americans throw away about 100 billion plastic bags annually," says Worldwatch, an environmental research group."

The Age in Australia reports that "countries from Taiwan to Uganda, and cities including Dacca in Bangladesh, have either banned plastic bags outright or impose a levy on consumers. Australia aims to phase them out by the end of this year, and China by June 21."

It may cost less than one cent to produce, but, as Murray puts it: "There's really no such thing as a free plastic bag."