Shoppers in Toronto are soon likely to be paying at least five cents for every plastic shopping bag they take home from the store.

Starting in June of next year, it's proposed that shoppers will be charged a nickel for each bag to carry home their groceries, or anything else that goes into a plastic bag.

The new fee applies to every retail store — not just grocery stores.

In making the announcement, Toronto Mayor David Miller trotted out some sobering statistics.

The ubiquitous plastic bags make up "half of all the shopping bags that we process for landfill," said Miller. Both the grocery industry and the city want to reduce their use by 70 per cent by 2012.

This action, said Miller, "represents a major step forward in our efforts to reduce the amount of waste."

The announcement comes after weeks of debate among city councillors over how to reduce the number of plastic bags that end up in landfills.

One idea, floated two weeks ago, was to give shoppers a 10 cent rebate for every bag they didn't use.

But that idea didn't go over well with store owners, and critics called it "unworkable."

Instead the industry proposed a charge, rather than a rebate, for the use of a plastic bag.

"The idea proposed by the grocers, which I support and will be moving at city council in the form of an amendment, will call for a minimum charge of five cents per plastic bag beginning next June," said Miller.

The retailers get to keep the nickel.

The system of charging for plastic bags is already in place in some grocery stores, such as No Frills.

Miller told a news conference at one of the city's waste transfer stations that studies show an average Toronto household uses about eight or nine plastic bags per week. On a yearly basis that translates into about 460 million plastic bags as landfill or litter.