Most plastic shopping bags are made from petrol. They end up either in landfill rubbish sites, where they release toxic chemicals and can take hundreds of years to break down, or end up in the bush, waterways or the ocean, where they are a threat to wildlife - Clean Up Australia estimates 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles are killed by plastic debris each year.

But it's easy to avoid single-use plastic bags with a growing range of reusable shopping bags on the market. Just as people used to do before throwaway plastic bags, it's just a case of getting back into the habit of taking bags with us when you go shopping.