Plastic bags

Recently I saw Abhishek Bachchan ad on TV where he is promoting Idea cellular.
The ad regarding "ban on plastic bags" caught my attention.
We say that we should ban use of plastic bags and still we go about using them.
Most of the time we are good at preaching than following.
Whenever I go to a grocery shop I take a jute bag with me.
I avoid taking plastic bag from the shop keeper. My sister goes erratic with my behavior.
I explained her many times the drastic effects of using plastic bag.
She would not understand.
Let me tell you folks, a plastic bag takes 100's of years to degrade. If you really want to know the side effects of garbage, watch the movie Wall-e.

Coming back to the topic I am about to discuss, there are many ways in which we can avoid usage of plastic bags.
a) Carry a jute bag whenever you go to vegetable market and grocery shop.
b) If the shopkeeper gives you more than one plastic bag for the same, deny it.
c) Don't use plastic bags for the garbage tins. Its unnecessary. Put some effort in cleaning the tin or ask the maid to clean it so that tin does not stink.

I have observed that most of the retailer chains use plastic bags heavily with their branded name. Some of them are Big Bazaar, Food world, Pantaloons, Lifestyle. These companies should think about the environment. They should be the first one to promote the disadvantages of plastic bags. In my opinion these shops should use jute or paper bags instead of plastic bags. If we are using Jute bags we are even helping an industry to grow better. I have seen that some of the famous handloom shops like FabIndia and Daaram use paper bags instead of plastic bags. Those paper bags are made of newspaper or recycled paper. Its good to see that these people think of environment. More responsibility is on "US" to protect our earth.
Lets take an oath to reduce the usage of plastic bags and keep our environment clean and green.

PS: If anyone can give me information on how to contact retailer chain shops and convince them to use jute or paper bags, it would be great. Is there any NGO that works towards this cause??