[V1ndaar]

It's unfortunate you're being downvoted. Your intuition is spot on. Here's [0] a report from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency about life cycle analysis of different shopping bags. See table 4 on page 18 in the summary. A cotton bag needs to be reused 7,100 times and an organic cotton one even 21,000 times to reach parity in its environmental impact compared to a single use plastic bag that's reused as a trash bag.

There's plenty of other studies. Just search for life cycle analysis of grocery bags or similar on Google Scholar.

[0]: https://backend.orbit.dtu.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/151577434...

[simondotau]

For what it’s worth, I come back to check on my reply after 8 hours to find it has a score of 1. So if there has been any downvotes they have been perfectly balanced out by upvotes.

I’m not a fan on indiscriminate use of petroleum products but I really think people underestimate just how thin a single use bag is. Next time you finish a plastic bottle of milk or juice, weigh the container and see how many single use bags it takes to match that weight.

Single use plastic bags are a problem, but like plastic straws, they’re not even in the top 100 of culprits. People pick on them because they’re easy and because they’re symbolic.

[nitrogen]

The main problem with single-use bags is that they blow away too easily and end up being seen.