NORTH VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Sometimes, going green doesn??t work out. In 2009, Thrifty Foods took the environmentally friendly step of eliminating plastic bags at each of its 26 locations, the Vancouver Sun reports.

The supermarket chain expected customers would be happy to bring their own reusable bags or take advantage of free paper bags. But instead, Thrifty found that many shoppers had a strong preference for plastic, disposable bags.

With that preference in mind, Thrifty is once again handing out plastic bags in a test run at three stores ?" in North Vancouver, Coquitlam and Abbotsford. The pilot program will run until the end of October, when the chain will evaluate the results.

"We??re going to assess the customer impact, the customer convenience and then make a decision," said Ralf Mundel, spokesman for Thrifty. "This is about convenience for customers we're blessed to have in our stores."

Thrifty had expected that "single-use bags, whether paper or plastic, would be a thing of the past," said Mundel. But strong demand for paper bags jumped to more than 11 million each year at Thrifty locations. Customers weren??t happy with the paper bags?? performance, saying they ripped and leaked too often and requesting a return to plastic bags.