Yes, but they are starting to use plastic bags much more frequently.

Actually, I haven't run into paper bags in years, but I remember my mom getting groceries with them. I guess they are more or less phased out now.

In some places they are offered as alternative to plastic bags.

I haven't seen, nor used, a paper grocery bag in over a decade.

At the pharmacy I work at we use them for alcohol and at our supermarket in town they use paper over plastic unless the customer has a preference.

That's odd, in my area they are used just as much. Yes they can be akward, but they hold more when it comes to cans and boxes of stuff. I use plastic for cold stuff.

Yes, which is a good choice since they are recyclable.

I get paper on every trip to the store. But, unlike the ones you see on TV when they carry them on their hips, and they rip open and everything falls... they do have handles now - which can help quite a bit. And, I have never had one rip open and dump everything on the ground. The paper bags hold much more than the plastic ones, and they keep the groceries from rolling all over in the trunk. I also find them more useful at home, as I put all my recyclables in them and then just throw the whole thing into the recycle bin, bag and all. I never ask for plastic. I'd rather have 2 paper bags than 5 plastic ones.

Our local grocery stores have both. I always get plastic when I go to Wal-Mart. I shop at Aldi's and you have to pay for bag unless you bring your own. So I just re-use all my Wal-Mart bags. They make good trash bags, especially for stinky, dirty diapers. Even when I've used the paper bags with the handles (which are just paper straps glued to the bag) they rip off and then the bag falls, and then all the groceries fall out.

What is more environmentally friendly a plastic shopping bag or a brown paper bag?

Personally, I haven't used paper bags in years. They're inconvenient to use, compared to plastic, whether it be in loading at the checkout, loading into the car, or carrying them into the house. My choice might not be the popular one for advocates for the environment, however a tree gets killed whichever choice you make. It just happens at a different time in the process. While this question isn't about what's best, or whether paper bags are better to use, "hellaphunt" challenged me and this is what I found. The people who routinely use paper because they think it's a wiser choice, might be surprised at the following information, taken from various sources. Plastic bags are recycled into many different end uses. Many of the film bags are recycled into composite plastic lumber or siding. Other films and bags are reprocessed into small pellets, which are then sold to make new films and various injection molded products. This from the Energy Information Administration site, on their Kids Page, found here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/saving/recycling/solidwaste/plastics.html#paperorplastic A paper cup or a plastic cup? Should you choose paper cups over plastic cups since the paper cups are made from natural wood products and will degrade? Not if the plastic cup is polystyrene (another name for Styrofoam®). A study by Canadian scientist Martin Hocking shows that making a paper cup uses as much petroleum or natural gas as a polystyrene cup. Plus, the paper cup uses wood pulp. The Canadian study said, “The paper cup consumes 12 times as much steam, 36 times as much electricity, and twice as much cooling water as the plastic cup.” And because the paper cup uses more raw materials and energy, it also costs 2.5 times more than the plastic cup. But the paper cup will degrade, right? Probably not. Modern landfills are designed to inhibit degradation so that toxic wastes do not seep into the surrounding soil and groundwater. The paper cup will still be a paper cup 20 years from now. Learn more about how long it takes buried trash to disappear. Then I found this from ReusableBags.com here: http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=7 Paper Bags Are Better Than Plastic, Right? The answer to the "paper or plastic"? dilemma is: Neither. They're roughly equal in pros and cons. While convenient addictions, they both gobble up natural resources and cause significant pollution. Issue 1: Energy and natural resources It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag. ENERGY TO PRODUCE BAG ORIGINALLY (BTUs) Safeway Plastic Bags: 594 BTUs Safeway Paper Bags: 2511 BTUs (Source: 1989 Plastic Recycling Directory, Society of Plastics Industry.) Of course, most paper comes from tree pulp, so the impact of paper bag production on forests is enormous. In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone. Paper bag production delivers a global warming double-whammy forests (major absorbers of greenhouse gases) have to be cut down, and then the subsequent manufacturing of bags produces greenhouse gases. Issue 2: Pollution The majority of kraft paper is made by heating wood chips under pressure at high temperatures in a chemical solution. As evidenced by the unmistakable stench commonly associated with paper mills, the use of these toxic chemicals contributes to both air pollution, such as acid rain, and water pollution. Millions of gallons of these chemicals pour into our waterways each year; the toxicity of the chemicals is long-term and settles into the sediments, working its way through the food chain. Further toxicity is generated as both plastic and paper bags degrade. POLLUTANTS PAPER V.S. PLASTIC Paper sacks generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags. Source: "Comparison of the Effects on the Environment of Polyethylene and Paper Carrier Bags," Federal Office of the Environment, August 1988 Issue 3: Recycling It takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper. But recycling rates of either type of disposable bag are extremely low, with only 10 to 15% of paper bags and 1 to 3% of plastic bags being recycled, according to the Wall Street Journal. ENERGY TO RECYCLE PACKAGE ONCE (BTUs) Safeway Plastic Bags: 17 BTUs Safeway Paper Bags: 1444 BTUs Source: 1989 Plastic Recycling Directory, Society of Plastics Industry. Although paper bags have a higher recycling rate than plastic, each new paper grocery bag you use is made from mostly virgin pulp for better strength and elasticity. Issue 4: Degradability Current research demonstrates that paper in today's landfills does not degrade or break down at a substantially faster rate than plastic does. In fact, nothing completely degrades in modern landfills because of the lack of water, light, oxygen and other important elements that are necessary for the degradation process to be completed. A paper bags takes up more space than a plastic bag in a landfill, but because paper is recycled at a higher rate, saving space in landfills is less of an issue. At the end of the day using reusable bags and containers are the real answer! Ideas for recycling or reusing plastic bags, here are a couple of sites which list things you probably can't do easily with paper bags: http://www.allthatwomenwant.com/recyclebags.htm http://www.betterbudgeting.com/articles/frugality/plasticgrocerybag.htm

Well, you have to ask for one. The plastic ones are usually very flimsy, and it takes several of them to carry what one of the brown ones would. Down with plastic grocery bags!!!!!!