[scotty79]

> I’m yet to see a cotton bag floating down the Thames.

When they are widly used you will.

I've used canvas bag from Tesco. It fell apart after few years. I definitely did not use it 7000 times.

When plastic bags were free I was reusing them as trash bags if I collected too many of them. Now I'm buying dedicated trashbags. I definitely spend more on plastic bags then I used to. I can only hope part of this money goes towards environmental efforts.

[MAGZine]

Selection bias... I used those bags for garbage too, but the number of bags I received to the number I used for that purpose was not comparable. There was already an abundance.

PlanetMoney said you needed to use a bag 131 times to be equivalent, not 7k. I see numbers floating around but no sources.

In any case. Reusing a bag not only reduces the bag usage the first time it's used but every subsequent time too. A reusable bags isn't preventing a single plastic bag, it's preventing at least one, probably two, maybe three and possibly four plastic bags each use considering how durable and large they are. Which is to say, you could fit (at most) two double bags of groceries into a single reusable.

[jasonzemos]

> I’m yet to see a cotton bag floating down the Thames.

>> When they are widly used you will.

But all those cotton bags you see quickly disintegrate back into the biome, while the plastic ones stay plastic for a million years...

[scotty79]

My canvas bag had thick plastic lining. You'd definitely would see it. Selling point of those is multiple use not biodegradability.

[lorenzhs]

I don't think anybody's claiming that canvas bags are the answer. As you said, they contain a lot of plastic. The comment you replied to was about cotton bags, not canvas.

[scotty79]

Oh. I thought they were the same thing.

I had one that looked pretty much like this: https://m.indiamart.com/proddetail/tesco-shopping-bag-368709...

Is it canvas or cotton?

[lorenzhs]

Hard to tell what it's made of from the tiny image, but the cotton bags I know are 100% cotton (except for the print), like this: https://www.sinplastico.com/3742-large_default/organic-cotto... while canvas bags are usually made from cotton + PVC.

[patall]

But that's just a convenience issue. There are some many other plastic bags still around that may not be as flexible as the generic fruit and vegetable bag but can still be used for most types of waste. For example I have been using cereal bags for the same task and while they do not fit as nicely in the trash container and you have to be a little more careful when you throw something in, they absolutely work too. Although in the long term we should maybe get rid of the cereal bag too and just use a multi-use hard plastic container that you have to clean with water after use.