Do you agree that polythene bags should be banned?

Practically and economically speaking, I would prefer PAPER bags over Polythene or plastic bags. And besides, it takes 500 years for them to decompose. I read it somewhere. We must be all using our resources wisely. ;)

Banning polythene bags would not necessarly improve the environmant. I do not agree that they should be banned. If the plastic bag is banned and we go back to using paper bags we would be destroying too many trees, even though the trees are being replaced they could not keep up with the demand for paper. What would be better would be that we each have reusuable bags to carry things in. Fabric or canvas bags would be much better for the environment. So what kind of bag do yo use?