Many people do that too, hence why the observation that banning them as "single use" when they're not, and forcing people to buy garbage bags instead, which are then actually single-use, is even worse.
To put it simply: Using something twice is not better than avoiding a use and then using it once.
And when I get plastic bags at the grocery store, a third of them end up too damaged to put trash into. The small size also makes them a lot less efficient at containing trash, despite them saving material by being half as thick.
And when I get plastic bags at the grocery store, a third of them end up too damaged to put trash into.
That's unfortunate, but a natural consequence of optimising for profit based on a self-fulfilling prophecy: the belief that the bags will only be used once, leads to them being made so that they can barely be used once. The same optimisation for profit is likely happening with cloth bags too, but it's just not as obvious yet.
That said, there are countless other occasions where a thin film of plastic comes in handy.
> That's unfortunate, but a natural consequence of optimising for profit based on a self-fulfilling prophecy: the belief that the bags will only be used once, leads to them being made so that they can barely be used once.
Yeah but better bags require more plastic. I'm not convinced that a sturdier bag will get enough people to increase their reuse enough to have a net benefit.
You can't forget the cloth bag but then still count its use.
Lack of using a plastic bag does not mean you're using a cloth bag.
Cloth might be better, but it depends how much energy is required to make the cloth bags.
One particular benefit of cloth bags is they result in less litter.
Of course, there's another option. There are cheap durable bags.
IKEA plastic bags are close to literally indestructible and cost $1USD. Although the smaller version ($0.89) is probably better for groceries. https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/frakta-shopping-bag-large-blue-...
IKEA might not be great for the environment overall but these bags are an insanely good win. Essentially infinite reuse. Unless you're dragging cinder blocks around in them I'm not sure how they'd ever really wear out.
So far after going to cloth bags in around 2009 or so ive yet to throw one away.
Cloth bags are impossible to destroy, light, easy to repair and easy to clean.
I would be surprised if anyone gets less than 100 uses out of them.
I also have reusable plastic bags but they are a lot more annoying to use and store.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-...
TLDR: garbage bags are thicker plastic, so the ban increases overall plastic use. Replacing plastic grocery bags with paper or cloth also is more resource intensive; cloth bags have to be used an average of 130 times to break even.
And if you're picking up dog poop, grocery bags are a lot bigger than you need so most of the plastic is wasted.
Oh, I just noticed this part of the article: "They estimate you would have to use an organic cotton bag 20,000 times more than a plastic grocery bag to make using it better for the environment."
Oof, that's a huge hit to credibility. I remember this number. The study did not say that. That's cherry-picking the very worst impact number out of a bunch of different categories. Specifically I think it was the impact of fertilizer on water supplies. And organic cotton had numbers three times as high as normal cotton. The reuse estimate for climate for normal cotton was about 50.
But the main issue with ubiquitous bags is that not all of them make it to disposal, und that just doesn't happen that much with bags specifically bought for that very purpose.