Plastic Bag Ban. Good or Bad?

On November 4, 2013  I responded to Ivitte Hernandez's post in favor of the Austin plastic bag ban.

I personally thought the plastic ban was a very positive thing. Plastic takes thousands of years to degrade, and even with the strictest recycling policies it would be impossible to recycle every plastic bag. Additionally, in terms of grocery shopping, there is no need for plastics bags. Reusable canvas bags can be brought to the store with minimal effort, not to mention you would actually spend less money in the long term since you are no longer buying bags everyday. 
In terms of the government "raising taxes" in order to pay for cotton and paper bags, I can really on see this as a positive. Would you rather see mounds of plastic bags in town lake, downtown, and zilker. Or pay a couple dollars more and have a cleaner city. In regards to "plastic bags do not destroy the environment before they are even sold", plastic is actually petroleum based therefore the production of plastic does propagate pollution inducing practices. While paper bags do require trees, trees are a renewable resource, unlike oil. 
Essentially my questions are, does the inconvenience of not having plastic bags really outweigh the positives of less pollution. I also don't understand the relation between higher taxes and paper/cotton bags. It seems to me that the budget could easily incorporate the price of plastic bags into paper/cotton.