Plastic bags

I shopped at Target today. I forgot to bring my own bags to pack my purchases. I have been in Target before and watched the sales clerk pack 15 average-sized items into 11 plastic bags. What would I do with all those bags? Throw them away, of course.
I read a snippet in a nuts and granola type of magazine the other day that summed up the problem with throwing plastic bags or other things away. There is no "away". We should think this way when purchasing any items. They are around forever.
At Target today, I asked the clerk to please not put my 15 or so items into bags. I loaded them into my cart instead and loaded them in my car one by one. From my house I took several trips to bring the items into the house. No plastic bags. I felt great. Now if I could only do something about all the wasteful packaging.....