Well, that's not entirely true. It's true that the plastic bags I use are still around, but in new plastic bags. I recycle mine at the Giant, and they get made into new plastic bags. If everybody (or most people) did that, we'd have steady-state plastic bags.

Did you see a council member in Annapolis is trying to ban plastic bags in the city? That's a different part of the problem -- plastic bags killing critters.