Dear Belly,

We do the bulk of our every day shopping at a Coles which is on the way home. Normally it is a few items and hardly ever need a bag. Our big shop is usually at ALDIs which doesn't have any artificial colours in their food and which hasn't had single use plastic bags since they opened. We keep about 9 ALDI bags in a single one in the boot. We carry it to the trolley then do our shopping. It is a simple matter to fill them on the bench provided. People do this without fuss, without abusing checkout personnel.

I suspect the majority of the angst against the ban is ideologically driven.

We are so used to exploiting natural resources
Foxy,
Yes ! But, we also need to take into account who are the major beneficiaries of this exploitation ?
All those who like to be able to switch on a light, keep food for longer, drive or be flown instead of just relying on one's own capacity to travel, exploit the benefits of the internet etc etc.
Who are these people you might ask ?
Tell you what, to make it more interesting I let you guess. cheers.

You know it's with great relief that the greens are losing ground as a anything resembling a political party.
I see with great amusement and more than a little concern, some of the ideologues and their answer to everything.
OK then, so far they have suggested that we stop all mining, stop all livestock exports, stop using fossil fueled vehicles and many more environmentally sound suggestions.
That's all well and good, but what they don't tell us is what to do to replace these things to keep things in balance.
Now to stop the mining we would have to have something to replace all the minerals, including coal.
Nothing?
OK, then let's turn our attention to livestock export.
They say we can process and value add in Australia.
There goes 90% of our buyers.
What do we replace it with?
Still nothing?
OK plastic bags.
We can replace them with cloth or even better, paper bags, because that will not put extra strain on the environment right?
Oh, wrong again?
So it seems that all these Johny feel good ideas are at best unworkable, at worst totally and completely 'unfit for purpose'.
If you come up with a good idea it has to be cheap as well, for it to be a 'good' idea.
Otherwise it's a 'bad' idea, and must not even be considered, let alone produced.
The reason we will not see any of the greens ideas 'float', is because they are not 'good' ideas and just cost too much.
So before you all start waffling on about what is the environment worth?
Well the answer is it's worth spending a bit more time to find ways of achieving the same end for less cost.
And as long as we have these thieves in Canberra, who will do anything to stop any cheap good ideas to be considered we are not going anywhere and the plastic bag issue is nothing compared to the bigger picture.
Let's not forget, we're not the problem, the countries to the North of us apparently are the culprits.

I will never concede that caring for the environment to just being a green issue, truth tells us people from all sides are concerned,the intent, driven by consumers, in this case was and still is doing some thing good for us all, it will not work until we force the spotlight on every phoney act, such as this, that in the end is not going to work until we truly re use our plastics and much more,a columnist in this mornings press tells those who are concerned to in effect shut up,true debate hopefully with true results is needed not like the plastic burying it out of sight out of mind

Hey ALTRAV,
Coles / Woolies - Bilderberg?
Well I just threw that out there but I suspect I'd be right.
I doubt that any staffmember or CEO of Coles or Woolies attend Bilderberg themselves, but I'm certain that yearly Bilderberg agendas would filter down into various business councils and organisations.

individual,

As our "needs" increase, our capacity for exploitation
expands. We don't see our ravaging of the environment
as "ravaging" at all, it is "progress" or "development."
We are so used to exploiting natural resources and
dumping our waste products into the environment that
we frequently forget that resources are limited and
exhaustible and that what we're doing can disrupt the
ecological balance on which our survival depends.