By Wyatt Buchanan
San Francisco Chronicle

Attention San Francisco shoppers: Plastic grocery store bags are going, going, gone. Starting Tuesday, large grocery stores in the city can no longer use the traditional plastic bags that are a staple of the supermarket checkout line, as a city ordinance passed earlier this year to ban the bags takes effect. "People are used to getting free bags and thinking there is no real consequence to them, but there is a cost," said Jack Macy, commercial recycling coordinator for the city's Department of the Environment, which is implementing the new policy.