It's hard to fathom quite how much plastic that is. To give myself an idea of the scale, I thought about how many bags I have at home - I'd say there are about 20-odd tightly packed into a small drawer. Times that by 16 and there's a rough estimate.
I've heard many people complain about the bags being called "single-use" when households use them for so many other things - carrying swimming togs, lining rubbish bins, wrapping leftovers and donating second-hand goods were some of the many examples mentioned.
But the reason these bags are called single-use is they are designed to be thrown away.
They are not designed to last and, regardless of any good intentions we have of reusing them over and over again, they eventually break and need to be thrown out. This is what they are created to do.
It doesn't matter how many times we use them, every single one of those bags is going to end up back in the environment eventually, causing a lasting impact either through being buried in landfill, making its way into our waterways, or breaking down into tiny particles and finding its way into our food and water.
Many of us seem to be quite attached to our plastic bags - the Government deciding to get rid of them completely has horrified some people.
But the way I see it is we haven't had them for that long anyway. It wasn't too many years past that most grocery stores had paper bags. They're a bit less convenient than plastic, sure, but we'll soon adapt.
It might be annoying to some, but it's a sacrifice worth making.
