[Retric]

Misplacing bags in your home is unlikely to continue indefinitely. If nothing else you would run out of room.

So it’s likely for someone to have many bags used a few times and lost and the remainder get used a great deal. Therefore what’s important is the average amount of reuse not simply what happens to individual bags. A single bag used 1,000 times makes up for a 9 used a 2-3 times.

[marcosdumay]

Yes, when they take up too much space, people will throw them on the trash.

Or are you expecting a different result?

[beej71]

I guess I was hoping that eventually they'd throw a few in their trunk.

[warkdarrior]

Why would one throw their trash in the trunk??

[Retric]

Reusable bags aren’t trash. So, by placing them in the trunk people save money compared to buying ever more of them.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

> If nothing else you would run out of room.

Yes, from time to time you realize that the entire box full of reusable bags isn't going to be reused. Then you take one of them, stuff it with the others until it's full, and stash that as the "maybe I'll reuse those".

Then you take another one, fill that one with the rest, and put it in the trash.

[Thorrez]

Is it possible to use a bag 1000 times? California's SB 270 says:

> It shall be capable of carrying 22 pounds over a distance of 175 feet for a minimum of 125 uses.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

[beej71]

It's really not easy for me to compute how many times each of my canvas bags has been used. But it's probably about 200 on average, since I've been doing this for over a decade and I've only had one canvas bag fail to death.

I'd bet 1000 uses is within the realm of possibility, but you'll probably need to do some repairs along the way.

[Thorrez]

Oh, I wasn't thinking about canvas bags. What I was thinking about, and what the law is about, is the thick plastic bags I've seen at e.g. Safeway checkout that they charge 10 cents for.

Buying these thick plastic bags seems to be what the checkout line guides people to do. Buying a canvas bag would require extra effort. People generally take the path of least resistance.