Not such a big deal? So says the city of Palo Alto, Calif.:

Out of sight, out of mind.
Plastic bags officially vanished from Palo Alto grocery stores Friday, and customers scarcely noticed them missing.
“Once you get started on reusable bags, you discover they’re easier,” said Alex Woody, of Palo Alto, who arrived at Safeway with eight different canvas bags — gray, green and brown — and has two more stored at home.
“They hold more, so you don’t have to make as many trips,” she said. “I’ve even convinced my mother and sister in Ohio to start using them.”
Although the city ban on plastic shopping bags went into effect Friday, all seven of the city’s full-service groceries had already made the switch to offering only paper and reusable bags. On Friday afternoon, customers were using both, happily.
Plastic bags were gone from Whole Foods Market, Piazza’s Fine Foods and Country Sun Natural Foods even before the Palo Alto City Council approved the ban in March. They’ve been phased out of Safeway, Andronico’s, JJ&F Food Store and Mollie Stone’s over the past month.
“We haven’t had plastic bags for about two weeks,” said Dan Berkson, a clerk at JJ&F. “We stopped ordering them probably a month ago.”
The San Jose City Council on Tuesday will vote on whether to go forward with a proposal to ban plastic bags and most paper ones starting in 2011. Such a ban would make the city the nation’s largest to have outlawed plastic bags. In the meantime, city staff will have to complete an environmental impact review and finish drafting the ordinance. That may take until December or early next year, after which the ban would be sent to the council for a final vote.