There are no real problems using the fabric bags.
I even use one of those plastic boxes like milk crates in the supermarket.
Have you noticed the much larger number of plastic bags used in the
fruit and veg shops ?

Hasbeen, that's exactly the point I was making I was quoting from old figures.

Bronwyn, the sad thing is that the waste stream is only part of the story of greening the environment. One needs also to consider the ecological cost/availability of the alternatives and the cost of manufacture (rstuat's point). If you compare the dilution rate of what I use then compare the damage it does (?) when compared to that of expensive marketed cleaner products or plastic bags I think your criticism of me is a little unjust....I think I gonna sulk now.... Ok that's over I back to normal (for me anyway).

rstuart, The other issue as I see it is both the damage these dam things (including packaging is both their bulk in landfill but the environmental damage particularly in the sea.
Several animals mistake them for jelly fish and choke. Sea birds get tangled up in them. From where I sit and observe given I have a daughter about to finish her double degree in science/environment (specialising in turtles, dugongs, sharks dolphins, sea snakes etc.) and my involvement bush care (plastic bags in water ways their damage is surprisingly wide effecting) plastic bags aren't my favourite product.

Everyone. On the pragmatic level for me is that plastic comes from oil. I wonder how we're going to provide all those other (more important products in the future) with out reasonably priced oil. Think for a moment how many products you use and are indispensable to western living. No computers, forget the fuel, no cars as we know them, no fridges, microwaves, blenders, TVs, stereos, MP3 players, drugs, flavourings, mobile phones, ( shows you that not all is bad) and horror of horrors no fermenters for my home brew!

examinator: "The other issue ... is ... the environmental damage particularly in the sea."

Its the only issue as I see it examinator, and it is fairly serious. But if that is the problem it is amenable to solutions aside from a ham fisted ban. Legislating that bags must degrade rapidly in sea water would be another solution. And why restrict it to shopping bags - I doubt they are bulk of the problem. Other plastic packaging materials would outnumber them by large a margin.

As for them using oil - they do, but it is a minuscule amount compared to what we use for transport. Literally a drop in an Olympic swiming pool. It is even necessary. They could use some other feed stock to make the plastic like coal or plant material, oil just happens to be cheapest right now.

I've just come across an interesting site:

http://www.plasticbageconomics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&itemid=31

Plastic bags friend or foe?

This website really brings the message home regarding the
enormous damage that plastic bags do to the
environment. We're told that, "...plastic bags
make up 80% of the volume of the litter on roads,
parks, and beaches and they make up 90% of floating
litter in the ocean."

"Over 100,000 different birds seals, and whales die
every year. The horrible thing is that after the
animals die and their carcasses decompose the plastic
is free to roam the ocean and kill again."

Turtles mistake the plastic bags for jelly fish and
eat them, thereby suffocating.

Plastic bags have a bad effect on coral reefs -
and the list goes on.

Banning them is not an option we have.

It's essential.

Foxy: "Over 100,000 different birds seals, and whales die every year."

Foxy you are quoting a activist site. The quoted figures might be facts, but the words "It is estimated that over a 100,000 ..." don't bode well. So I went looking, and found this:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3508263.ece

In summary, for those who don't follow links:

"The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags."

rstuart,
If you were handy I would invite you on one of my patrols and you could see my part of the world. I agree my perspective maybe coloured by what I and my contact field see daily .
I would suggest that figure are hard to come by but one turtle rescue group tell me they see plastic carrier bag fatalities at the rate of about 14 per week (not just in turtles). Given that many of these species are either protected or potentially endangered it is a problem.

I also doubt that degradable plastic would make little difference .

I do agree that there are many causes rather than 1 but they are a large contributive factor.
I still contend that plastic bags and much of the packaging is unnecessary. But then again I see making some thing for money and having to create a market as a perversion of the fundamentals of capitalism.
More info about fossil fuels in plastics please.