You guessed it, a plastic shopping bag, and we are drowning in them.

Over the past 10 years more plastic has been produced than in the whole of the last century.

It has been calculated that Australians used four billion plastic bags last year.

Thank goodness that some towns and some retailers are no longer giving these out.

Let's go back to recyclable paper bags.

Currently, only 3 per cent of plastic bags used in Australia are recycled.

We have all seen large numbers of plastic bottles littering the highways, walking tracks and beaches.

That plastic bottle you carelessly discard will be around to pollute the environment for 450 years.

Why then are governments so reluctant to introduce a container deposit system?

Imagine all that pocket money young people could earn picking this litter up.

- BILL CARNEY, Riverside