Thank you for your reply, Glen. I'm so glad you touched on the freedom vs control side and the potential, unforeseen downsides of sudden changes. I agree, every sudden large scale implemented change is pretty much guaranteed to have bad consequences. Which is why the slow changes of consumer demand is nearly always the better way to go.
Back to the bags again for example. Plastic came into use as a by product of the fuel industry. While we still have so much running on oil, that by product is going to be there and abolishing all plastic is just going to mean the need to find another way of disposing of it and it's probably going to be just as bad as the plastic waste. It's a chain in place and links need to be gradually replaced or it fails.
There are also uses for plastics which can't really be replaced by other materials. However, many single use plastics could be replaced with compostable plastics now. So the convenience of plastic bags can remain in place with potential escapees not causing so much of a problem.
Hopefully it's not restricted to Australia.On the side of government intervention, most people are so reliant on government doing things for them, they almost won't do anything until it's sanctioned by government and if they want something done will appeal to government to change it. I recently watched a documentary about a chap who went against everything that government recommended to restore dead farmland and it took him 30 years for people to finally start paying attention to what he was doing. Until then he was fighting everyone on it, particularly his neighbours. Here's the link to the documentary if you're interested: https://www.abc.net.au/austory/of-droughts-and-flooding-rains---part-1/9169558
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