It's time to be more wise of what we use to bring back our groceries or what we purchased at the mall. With that said, plastic bags are not the way to go. They can be very harmful for our environment, even though we might think that they are convenient.
   A lot of energy is used in producing plastic bags, which is usually never a good thing. Plastic bags do not only pollute our water but also our land. Plastic bags are usually lightweight and as such, they can travel very long distances by either water or wind. Wind blows these plastic bags and trashes a whole area. These litters get caught up in between trees, fences and floats in water bodies thus moving to the world’s oceans.
   The total amount of energy required to drive a car for one kilometre or half a mile is equivalent to the amount of energy required to produce nine plastic bags. It's not rational that these non-renewable resources are used to make plastic bags when the typical useful life of each and every plastic bag is around 12 minutes.
   Plastic bags are also not easy to recycle. Plastic bags are said t o present significant challenge in terms of recycling. Recycling facilities do not have the capacity to recycle plastic bags. Because of this, they do not accept them. Therefore, the actual recycling rate for plastic bags is around 5%, which is a very low percentage, compared to the number of plastic bags that are not being recycled.

I just recently switched to bringing my own bags to the grocery store because I realized the effect that plastic bags had.  Some of the facts you stated I had no idea about which makes me happy that I switched. Not many people realize this. I think grocery stores should only use paper bags to reduce the use of plastic bags.

I agree completely, and I usually bring my own bags but sometimes I forget. I will be better about that. For example, my family brings grocery bags to the grocery store, but if I go to the mall I forget to bring a bag.  Also I need to reuse ziplock bags more. When they get kind of dirty looking I throw them away, but I could use them for other purposes, like trash bags, or I could just save them until I see a use for them.

Also I think your point is applicable to plastic bottle usage as well. Humans make about 20,000 plastic bottles every second and only 7% of bottles collected for recycling are made into new bottles.  Additionally, between 5 and 13 million tons of plastic leaks into the ocean every year, and people who eat seafood eat up to 11,000 pieces of plastic every year. It's everywhere! Just doing some research now makes me never want to buy a plastic bottle again, or anything plastic. Then again, I'm here typing on a plastic keyboard, and I can count more than ten things that are plastic on my desk right now! I guess the best thing to do is just to avoid buyin g unnecessary plastic and reuse it as much as possible.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment … ate-change

I totally agree with that. Plastic bags are very harmful to our earth and we need to be more careful. Our family tries to always take our own bags to the store, but to be honest we forget sometimes too. Reusing bags is a great way to decrease the amount of trash on this world. I get angry sometimes at the people who work at the stores when they put every thing in its own plastic bag. i wish they would start filling up the plastic bags until nothing else fits. They would use a lot less bags if they did that.  Everyone should start reusing plastic bags and taking their own bags to the store with them instead of getting more plastic bags.

I agree, plastic bags are very harmful for our community and earth. Whenever I go to the store I bring my own bags. Plastic bags are terribly harmful to the animals we live around. they could get stuck in a plastic bag or get choked. People don't dispose of them properly sometimes, they blow away and are littered. All around Seattle and in other cities I always see plastic bags floating in the air not in the trash can where they are supposed to be. If we all made a good effort to bring our own bags when we go grocery shopping it would make a difference.

Al lot of places, you have to buy plastic bags. Now they give you paper. I also bring my own.

I agree, plastic bags are terrible for the planet both from carbon foot print wise and also litter. Like said above, making plastic bags require so much effort of factories and produce so much carbon in the air. The bags are rarely reused and many are littered around effecting wildlife and overall how clean the earth is in towns and cities. I do think that reusuable bags are useful though. I used to live in California where there's a requirement of the shoppers to bring their own bag, unless they want to be charged a small tax to pay for one. I think that if it is in affect everywhere across the US or even the world it could really lower the amount of plastic bag usage. It became such a habit to bring my own bag and I think this could also make people more aware of their plastic usage and overall carbon footprint.

I just read this incredible article about Rwanda and how they are completely cleaning up the country due to a country-wide ban on plastic bags  It's a pretty extreme approach, but yet truly amazing
https://nyti.ms/2iFrNZH