I try to take a blue Ikea bag along and bung everything in that.

One way and another in the UK they seem to be working at making people feel embarrassed when they ask for new bags at the check out. They haven't yet gone the Irish way, with a small tax charge on every plastic bag, but I imagine that'll come if enough people don't do it voluntarily.

The real enemy in this context is excessive and unnecessary packaging. Particularly the sort where you need a tool kit to remove it - which makes it tricky to take it off in store and dump it.