Why rag on the bags?
Why does everyone complain about plastic bags, not the content of the bags. Each bag has a miniscule mass, being quite flexible and thin. But by the time it's filled with groceries, there is probably 100 times as much hard plastic, almost none of which is recyclable by my local council (only plastic with certain numbers (6 or 7 from memory) can be accepted).
So, why is nobody whingeing about the hundreds of times more tons of plastic that is used as packaging?
I actually find carrier bags useful, for filling with soiled cat litter. If I didn't have a ready supply of bags at the supermarket, I'd have to buy them separately. (see the "litter locker" product for an example of how carrier bags are actually saving the environment)
It's just typical of our government to hit out at the easiest target : carrier bags, motorists, people without ID cards, etc... Plastic carrier bags can only be a fraction of the waste problem, but they are the easiest to complain about. Just make everyone use reusable card boxes, hessian or hempen sacks for carrying their shopping home instead. Then let them fill the carrier with a load of hard plastic wrapping a tiny item (e.g. a 1 inch long USB memory stick with plastic wrapper that is about A4 sized)
What alternative is there to individual product packaging? Expensive recyclable plastic instead of cheap last a million year stuff, glass (breakable, heavy), 'tin'/aluminium cans (probably ideal for most products, it's widely recyclable, probably more expensive than plastic though).
Someone please start an "anti plastic packaging on products" campaign.