But, Pink, why do they want to ban plastic bags? I believe you but i dont understand the reason. Straws too. There must be a reason. Do you know why?
There are too many reasons why plastic trash is a very bad thing to list. So I'll park this here.
http://plastic-pollution.org/
There are literally islands of plastic pollution in the oceans. It never decomposes, at least not anytime soon.
As for drinking straws, apparently sea life especially are prone to eating or sucking them up and causing them damage.
Here's a straw-specific link. I warn you - the photo and video of the sea turtle is disturbing to those who are soft-hearted toward animals.
https://www.1millionwomen.com.au/blog/straws-why-they-seriously-suck/
Now...having disseminated the horror that is plastic to you all...Yes. I use plastic.
I have shopping bags that I could reuse and I only remember them when I shop at Alidi's because they don't have bags at all unless you buy them. In my defense, we DO try to get the stores to use as few as possible. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've said,
"So long as things aren't squished I don't care how you pack it. Put the bananas on top of the soap...it's fine. Don't give me a bag for one item. Don't bag things with handles." The grocery store used to knock 5 cents off every reusable bag you used. But they stopped. They don't charge 5 cents for each bag...so I never remember them in any other stores.
If bags don't have holes in them, we use them to scoop cat litter into. Yes, still goes in a landfill, but at least it gets two uses first. If they do have small holes, I carry my lunch to work in them until the holes are too big or they get messy. We do save them and return to stores to recycle, since our city recycling doesn't take them. There's still too many plastic bags.
I'd love to do this:
https://www.1millionwomen.com.au/blog/diy-crochet-plastic-bags-sleeping-mats-homeless/
We save our leftovers and pack our lunches in plastic containers. But at least we re-use nicer plastic container's with lids. The ones from the deli for instance that are thicker plastic and have tight-fitting lids, get kept and reused by us for left-overs. I have read that heating things in plastic is bad for you. I figure I have to die from something. We don't buy water in bottles, unless it's carbonated, flavored water - we drink out of the tap. We reuse our plastic bottles until they start getting ratty, filling them from the tap and chilling them in the fridge. I never use straws at home...but I admit, I use them at restaurants.
So, we use. But we at least try to tone it down a tad.