Alison Denham, of Vincents Road, Kingsbridge, writes:

I was really pleased to see your article recently about the campaign to make Kingsbridge free from plastic bags.

This outcome is well overdue and I thoroughly support it. I always have a light cotton bag in my handbag so as no avoid getting 'caught out' without a bag. Invariably I have my re-usable bags or boxes ready and waiting at the till and yet still have plastic bags thrust upon me, frequently for items that are already wrapped and for which there is no earthly reason to add another layer of wrapping to. I'm able to walk the short distance from the till to my car or home just carrying the items I've brought, and yet this seems to be viewed as an unseemly thing to do by till operators.

Do you remember the Winnie the Pooh story, when it was Eyore's birthday? But on the way to taking him his presents Piglet fell and burst the balloon he was carrying and Winnie the Pooh ate all the honey in the jar.

However, Eyore was delighted and spent many happy hours putting the damp burst-balloon rag into the empty jar and taking it out again. I'm always reminded of that story when I think of the absurd culture on plastic bags we have.

I'm finding it harder and harder to remain polite and smiley in the face of the continual assumption that offering me a plastic bag is the right thing to do. So, sorry till operators and shopkeepers, lovely people that you are, if you mindlessly offer me a plastic back you'll have an argument on your hands!

I know I'm not alone, although Helen Petit quite righly states that there is a lot of work to do.

Could a more scientific person than myself write in outlining why plastic bags are so awful, please?

I know that they unnecessarily clog up landfill sites, are strewn high and low about the countryside by the wind (witches knickers in the trees), waft about our oceans and cause untold suffering and death to land and sea life who are tied up in them or are poisoned by ingesting them.

I know it is misleading to have 'bio-degradable' bags. Atoms and chemicals don't just dissappear, their form (solid/gas/liquid) may change but the poison still exists. I think the information about the tragedies caused by plastic bags should be a subject of another article.

Can a knowledgeable person please oblige?