[jfengel]

I find I can carry at least 4 times as much stuff in a reusable bag as a disposable one. They've done remarkable work in making those disposable bags thinner, which is especially helpful when you're only buying a few light items, but for larger trips it's simply not a 1:1 substitution.

There are so many factors involved (CO2, petroleum drilling, microplastics, other pollution, etc) that it's not easy to provide a definitive ratio. I do think it's good that the discussion has reduced the amount of plastic being used in the bags themselves (though I'd need to see a study if that ends up reducing the total amount of plastic involved, or if they're just using more bags). I think it's good that people are now in a better position to forego bags entirely rather than put a single item in a bag simply because they're there and free.

Mostly, though, I'd caution against citing numbers that assume that one reusable bag is exactly the capacity of one disposable one.