Other comments have addressed the questionable environmental benefits of plastic bags over multi-use bags. However in terms of ocean pollution this is totally m

Other comments have addressed the questionable environmental benefits of plastic bags over multi-use bags. However in terms of ocean pollution this is totally missing the mark. This is an unpleasant thing to discuss, but perhaps times are pressing. Developed countries, including the UK, have modern waste management meaning that close to 0% of its waste plastic ends up in the oceans. The only contributing factor is beach litter. Plastic in the oceans comes from poorer countries in SE asia where the waste management systems are inadequate and open air dumpster sites are the norm. [0] In fact, "90% of plastic polluting our oceans comes from just 10 rivers" [1] Our efforts should be directed there, financially and politically. It's not an easy problem since being harsh on poor counties and meddling in their internal affairs doesn't look good, but imo we have no choice. An important contributing factor is that the West sends some of its plastic to be recycled by some of these countries which in turn simply dump some of it instead and it finds its way to the oceans. We can no longer turn a blind eye to that. As part of the effort, we must ensure that either these counties actually do the recycling (perhaps with our aid), or we don't continue to buy their recycling services. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluting-our-oceans-comes-from-just-10-rivers https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluti...