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Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

> No way this is true, not when the bag costs about 30% of what I usually buy per trip.

The price is normally the legislated minimum, 10¢. So your average shopping trip is ~33¢?

Reusable shopping bags cost about $10-$15. No one is buying them frivolously.

I think the issue here is one of semantics. The so-called "reusable" bags you're talking about are still classified as single-use plastics.

If you look at BC as an example, where ALL single-use plastic bags at checkouts are banned, people have adapted just fine. In some stores (like restaurants) you can buy paper bags for 25¢, but generally people either don't bother with bags at all and simply load things directly into their cars, or they bring their own bags or baskets. Now, pretty much the only litter I regularly see is paper coffee cups or candy wrappers. Bags have disappeared, and bottles and cans usually collected for the deposit.

Going up a few levels in the conversation, I think the question is about the extra-durable bags the store sells for $0.15, not properly reusable bags (hence me calling out encouragement of properly reusable bags as a potential solution).

The reuseable bags in my area are 10-50 cents for the plastic ones and like 5 dollars for the foldable cloth ones with a button.

Where are you seeing 10-15 dollar bags? I can only imagine that’s happening because your locality added a major tax to them

Also I get delivery groceries from BJ’s and they have been including piles of these giant reuseable bags in each order to the point that I have been donating them to a homeless shelter.

I produced less plastic waste with grocery bags back when they were the size and shape to be reused as bathroom garbage bags, anecdata and real data all points to them being used frivolously still

Reusable bags are $0.99 at my grocery store, and they give a coupon for a free one every few months. They last years.

Some people on this thread are talking about things like canvas bags, which are more expensive and meant to be reused a lot, and others are talking about plastic bags that have a lot of material and are more durable than the old school "thinnest bag you can produce without it dissolving immediately when you look at it" which are not nearly as expensive to buy as the others.

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