But many of the bags that passed the testing there are tougher plastic bags. Which are presumably also pretty cheap to manufacture, just not quite as cheap.

IIRC the real reason for phasing out single use plastic is the pollution problem and us not having a good way of reusing the fibers as it's just not economically viable. For other fibers that is less of a problem.

So, if you're replacing a single use plastic bag with a heavy duty plastic bag that gets thrown out after a small number of uses... Yeah that might be worse

As for the "amount of water and energy spent" to produce them, yes, that is tiny compared to something like a tote bag (and for most commodities, production cost usually tracks closely with resource use). But in a sense, that is actually part of the problem: they are so cheap and resource-light to make that they get treated as disposable, and their environmental cost shows up later in waste and pollution rather than up front in production.

Generally speaking, when I was younger (say, 20 years ago), discussions about environmental impact were almost entirely framed around pollution (what ends up in the soil, air, or water), not around the energy footprint of making things. It's interesting how it changes nowadays.

   Single-use plastic bags, while a substantial source of litter, have a surprisingly small carbon footprint due to their manufacturing process, light weight and inert material not releasing methane into the environment.

   A 2018 study by the Ministry of Environment and Food in Denmark suggests that an organic cotton tote needs to be used 20,000 times to offset its overall environmental impact of production.

As far as I understand, part of the problem was that they kept ending up in the nature rather than into an incinerator, while reusable bags usually are properly disposed when not needed any more.

My theory is that everyone knows they are lying and don't care about the environment and just want to attack the real environmentalists.

People point out that he's factually wrong but no one would argue that Trump is sacrificing green energy jobs and cheap clean energy for birds, because no one believes he actually cares in the first place.

But I'm open to other theories.

Also cotton is not the only material for reusable bags (but probably among the most durable).

I know it's an uphill battle but we don't have to make it worse.

I have two "bag for life" bags from Marks & Spencers in the UK that are no longer sold, which is a shame, because they pack up into a tiny little pouch that can go in a jeans pocket; ideal for a guy who doesn't carry a shoulder bag all the time.

They are 15 years old (at least) and were made from some sort of recycled nylon, I think. I've probably used them for a thousand shopping trips, and as I shop on foot, all of those journeys have involved carrying said shopping about half a mile.

I don't know how long it took me to fully switch over (i.e. remember to pack it each time I left). I am easily distracted, so maybe it took the first 50.

But this is of the order of two thousand single use plastic bags not used. I refuse to believe the manufacture of this bag didn't break even by 250 single-use bags.

I reckon they will last another couple of years at least (one of them is kind of worn; I balance my shopping weight a bit better now).

Won't last as long as my wallet, which is forty this year, or my shoulder bag, which is 25 next year.

E.g. when a plastic bag is slowly mechanically ground into microplastic by the wind, weather and UV radiation how much would it cost to collect the microplastic from that single bag and remove it from the environment?

Depending on how you go about this the number can range from zero (we don't care) to cents (some effort to remove microplastics, juet not by that specific bag) to astronomical numbers if you really try to retriebe every particle — an endeavour where the cleanup would probably be worse for the environment than just leaving it there. If you want to get a grasp of how that would look like read about various cleanups thar happend after nuclear accidents.

The thing is, that there is no "correct" number here. It depends on what you want to do. If you are a oil company, saying microplastics are an non-issue and consumers have to be responsible is probably the best route.

Now there are no fully conclusive results on the long term effects of microplastics on humans yet, but we have good evidence it is harmful for ecosystems. Now again you can ask the question how much is an ecosystem worth? How much do we want to spend to keep them clean? What about accumlative effects? We have been using plastics only for a century max and if we add them to the environment, but never remove them, what will that do?

That aspect of microparticles is a problem that is much more controllable with textile tote bags, especially if they are made from hemp, cotton or similar natural fibers that decompose faster in the environment. We could take the risk and use some favourable numbers for plastics, but we could also just play it safe.

Additionally if you use three tote bags for 30 years, like my grandmother, how would the equivalent mass in single use plastic bags look like? Let's do the math: 5g is the weight of an average plastic bag, if you only used those for every purchase you would probably use like 400 a year, or 2kg plastics. Multiply by the thirty year period and you get 60 kg of waste plastics versus maybe 1kg of textile for the tote bags (that are still working tote bags if you treat them right and sew them if broken).

And the entire point of reusable bags being a thing is that you don't constantly buy bags.

They are quite simply marvels. (Great Veritasium video about them too)

> The Canadian government counts bags containing plastic as reusable if they can withstand 100 trips of 53 metres each while carrying 10 kilograms, without breaking or tearing.

The false economy is frustrating, boarding on disingenuous.

Upon Australia's ban of single use plastic bags, many stores switched to "reusable" plastic bags which were composed of about 10x more plastic. I saw very few people "reusing" these bags at the checkout, suggesting they went into landfill at a very similar rate to the single use ones, but just with 10x the plastic.

That said, paper bags are fragile compared to their plastic counterparts.