Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtles and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistake them for food , or simply become tangled.  This is bad.  I like sea turtles!
The manufacture of plastic bags adds tonnes of carbon emissions into the air annually.  This is also bad.
Between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year.  Wow,  that's alot!!
Approximately 60 - 100 million barrels of oil are required to make the world’s plastic bags each year.  I am pretty sure that is bad also, and some people are making some serious money from all of this.
Most plastic bags take over 400 years to biodegrade. Some figures indicate that plastic bags could take over 1000 years to break down.  This means not one plastic bag has ever naturally biodegraded.
Plastic bags are produced from polymers derived from petroleum. The amount of petroleum used to make a plastic bag would drive a car about 11 metres.

Australians use 3.92 billion plastic bags a year, that's over 10 million new bags being used every day. An estimated 3.76 billion bags or 20,700 tonnes of plastic are disposed of in landfill sites throughout Australia every year.  This helps make Australia the second highest producers of waste per person in the world.  :(

Ok people, now the good part.  Fortunately we don't actually need to use plastic bags when we go to do grocery shopping!!!  There are all sorts of re-usable and durable alternatives already available.  For one or two items I find hands particularly useful, (actually I have large hands, so I can usually carry more than that ;) ).  Otherwise I usually use purpose-built cotton shopping bags.  I have quite a few of these because sometimes I go shopping and I forget them, so then I have to buy a new one, although now I always keep a couple stashed in my car.  It is actually quite easy :D Backpacks, cardboard boxes, satchels, burlap sacks etc etc also work quite well!

Thank you everyone for reading this and for your support!!!!!