Same in France, the stores starting charging for plastic bags (even before the gov introduced a tax) in the early 2000s, and it dropped to 800 millions back in 2010, from 15 billion in 2003.[1][2] Since 2016 they're completely banned.

Glad to see that more countries took similar easy steps.

The E.U. is forcing every member country charge for those bags by the end of 2018, and to make sure on average people use less than 90 bags per person per year by end of 2019.

For comparison, Danish and Finnish use only 4, France 80, and Portuguese 400+ [3]

[1] http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2013/01/03/l-interdict...

[2] https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2003/12/04/202430-la-chasse...

[3] http://www.liberation.fr/france/2016/06/25/sacs-plastique-ce...