10 things you didn't know about plastic bags...

Our friends over at Bean Sprouts Blog have compiled a fab list of factoids about plastic bags - and why we need to keep up our determination to cut down on them, whether that means re-using them in interesting ways, or simply taking your own shopper everywhere with you and standing up to those shop assistants that want to shower you with bags.

1. Around 17 billion plastic bags are given away every year in the UK

2. Most of these are only used once and then thrown away

Follow the jump for the rest of the list

3. If everyone in Britain used reusable bags, the plastic bags we'd save would tie around the world 103 times (except they wouldn't because we wouldn't have made them because instead we'd - oh, never mind

4. Around a million seabirds and a hundred thousand mammals are strangled by plastic litter every year, worldwide

5. A leatherback turtle (an endangered species) was found dead in 1998 with 57kg of plastic bags inside it

6. A minke whale washed up in Normandy in 2002 had 800kg of plastic bags in its stomach

7. Only half a percent of plastic bags are recycled

8. About 100,000 tonnes of plastic bags are thrown away in Britain annually. That's the same weight as 70,000 cars

9. Plastic bags are not free. The shops pass on the cost to you by adding a few pence to the cost of goods. A typical UK household spends about £470 per year on packaging

10. Plastic bags are cr*p. The handles snap, they dig into your hands, they rip if you put anything a bit pointy in them, you can't carry them on a bike, they fall over when you set them on the floor.

Ditch the duff carriers and switch to a snazzy reusable bag. Save the whales. Save the planet. Save the palms of your hands. And don't forget to vote in the poll in the right-hand sidebar.