Comment by Etheryte

Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall reading somewhere that single use plastic bags are so cheap from production to destruction that they still make more environmental sense than totes and the like. Yes, the cotton bags last way longer, but the amount of water and energy spent to produce one is so much larger that you'd need to keep using one bag for decades just to break even. This is all paraphrasing from memory, perhaps someone else has a better recollection or a reference for this? For me, the main takeaway is not to religiously switch to reusable bags, but just use whatever you have handy and not shun away one over the other.