[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

Late to the party on this one, but a couple of points to add:

Someone mentioned earlier about biodegradable plastic bags. There is no such thing. All that happens is that the size of the plastic particles continues to reduce until such time as we have micro particles everywhere in our environment. We ingest a heap of this stuff through our food chain.

Have a watch of the ABC series War on Waste. Was a big insight for me and encouraged me to do something relatively simple that may have a big improvement on our future world. You can watch the first series here, whilst a second series is not far away from airing.

Cav, I understand your point, but doesn't it make sense that if you are going to start to tackle a huge problem, you start with those items that are considered by many as "single use" and therefore have the largest impact (energy and environmental damage per use). Seems to me that starting with single use items is a logical place to start.

For the multi use items, or for items that aren't practical for reuse, such as food packaging, you can recycle your soft plastics (anything that you can scrunch in your hand) at your nearest Coles store. More info here

And if you want an idea as to what practical use the recycled plastic has check out this story and this site.

Also check out this story about Henderson Island for the impact that plastics are having on our natural environment

The banning of the single use bags is not the be all and end all. It is just the start of an important journey.