Recycling Does Not Mean "Riding A Bike Twice"

I've lived in countries where you are made to feel like a leper for requesting a plastic bag in the supermarket.
“This is a customer announcement. Margrave at till number four has just requested an extra plastic bag. Rotten tomatoes are available from the fruit counter. He will be in the stocks for the next sixty minutes.”
I've also lived in countries where you run the risk of being lynched if you’re caught wasting precious water by washing your car.
“Drown in your soapy water, sinner!”
Therefore I was completely taken aback to find that in Saudi Arabia (which happens to be a desert region, don’t you know) there is no apparent restriction on water usage and when you go the supermarket they give almost every single item its own individual plastic bag! Whenever we try to use our own reusable bag we end up in a race with the packing guy who desperately tries to do his job and pack the plastic bags before we can grab the items for ourselves.
Every time I walk out of Carrefour or Hyperpanda in Riyadh with 30 items of food in 27 plastic bags I look back at all those times of saving one or two bags on our trips to the supermarket and feel like a total fool.
If I was a smart man I’d explain it as a link to the country being a desert and therefore no one caring about conservation. Or perhaps because plastic bags are made from by-products of oil production they are considered neither expensive nor important.
But I’m not a smart man, so I won’t.
But I will say: Come on Saudis! Stop using all those plastic bags, let’s at least save a few for when the oil runs out.