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Betsy Graves of Portland carries reusable bags from the Hannaford store on Forest Avenue in Portland on Wednesday as her son, Jack, 5, helps carry a plastic bag most commonly used for groceries. She says she brings home an occasional plastic bag for “smelly” trash.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Eliza Eastman of Portland also finds new uses for the bags.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Vince Diyenno of Portland loads his car with Thanksgiving groceries in plastic bags at Hannaford on Forest Avenue on Wednesday. He says he reuses the bags for a variety of tasks.

Ireland charges a fee to use them, and so do Denmark and Switzerland.

Now, Mainers may soon join the global assault on the ubiquitous plastic grocery bag.

A lawmaker from Bar Harbor wants Mainers to switch from the thin plastic bags to reusable ones that aren't as harmful to the environment and don't contribute to our addiction to oil. And he's got the attention of the grocery industry, which is pledging to help create a bring-your-own-bags ethic in Maine.

Rep. Ted Koffman, a Democrat and co-chairman of the Legislature's Natural Resources Committee, said a fee of 20 cents or so, added to each plastic bag, could help shoppers make the switch to reusable cloth bags and help pay for the development of inexpensive alternatives, such as plastic made out of Maine potatoes instead of oil.

"The whole idea is to reduce the amount of plastic bags being used and put into the system," Koffman said. "There's an international movement in this direction."

It used to be that the grocery bag debate focused on paper versus plastic. That one pretty much ended in a draw, since neither is a clear winner from an environmental perspective.

But now plastic bags are coming under intense pressure worldwide, mostly because they are everywhere and a significant amount of oil is used in their production. Plastic bags also have been maligned around the world because they are a persistent form of litter that clogs storm drains and chokes sea turtles that mistake them for jellyfish. For his part, Koffman wants to reduce their use as a small step toward curbing global warming.

"Why wouldn't we say to ourselves as a society, 'What little things can we do to reduce our reliance on foreign oil?' " he said. If we can't stop using oil to make grocery bags when there are alternatives, Koffman said, how will we ever stop using it to fuel our cars and heat our homes?

San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban the bags last spring. The ban took effect last Tuesday. Officials in Boston, as well as other cities, have also considered a ban.

Koffman came up with a different plan, based in part on the approach taken by Ireland.

He would place a 20-cent fee -- or something like it -- on each bag used by customers of large retailers and use the money for incentives to switch to reusable bags.

Those using reusable bags could get discounts on their groceries and qualify for lottery drawings, such as $1,000 in cash or groceries, he said.

Revenue from the fees could also helps pay for research into plant-based bioplastics, as well as for education about the costs of disposable plastic bags.

Koffman said it should not be labeled a tax on the bags, because he doesn't think the government needs to be involved in handling any of the money. He conceded that the plan would cost people upfront, but he argued that people who switch to canvas bags will eventually save money because of the discounts on groceries.

Koffman proposed his idea in a bill presented this fall, but legislative leaders voted against bringing it forward during the upcoming session, which is reserved mostly for emergency legislation.

"I get chuckles on this from some of my legislative colleagues," he said, "but I'm getting very serious support from the citizenry."

Still, some of the citizenry is less enthusiastic.

"What are we going to use for diapers?" was Jeff Dice's reaction to the idea as he loaded his car with plastic bags full of groceries from the Hannaford store on Forest Avenue in Portland.

The plastic bags are great for sealing up stinky diapers, he said. They're also handy for lining his trash can and holding his recyclables, Dice said.

Other shoppers said the bags are great for cat litter and dog waste.

"I don't actually throw them out without reusing them," said Eliza Eastman of Portland.

But Betsy Graves of Portland said using fewer plastic...