[matthewdgreen]

Our city banned single-use plastic bags. The result is you can have paper bags for 5 cents each, or you can buy re-usable plastic bags for $1-$2.50 each (usually tilted towards the higher end.) Nobody is forcing you to buy re-usable plastic, and it's expensive enough to dissuade people from buying too many.

BTW, the biggest outcome is that I use fewer bags in general, and just don't take a bag when I don't need one.

[Wowfunhappy]

For some reason, a lot of retailers around me in New York seem to only sell the "reusable" bags, with no option for paper. I don't know why, it's very annoying.

My other problem is I can't reuse paper bags as trash bags (because even a tiny amount of liquid will leak through). So now I have to buy plastic trash bags, which sucks because I do in fact care about the environment.

[matthewdgreen]

As far as I can tell, that's a retailer decision and not something mandated by the state or city.

But the real problem with single-use plastic bags is that they blow out of dumpsters and landfills. They're incredibly bad for the environment, in ways that re-usable bags and even larger trash bags are not.

[dotnet00]

The paper bags aren't that reliable though. They're fine if you're just carrying the groceries to/from your car, but then you're also likely to already have a bunch of bags/baskets laying in the car. They also suck for cold stuff (eg milk), as the condensation quickly renders them useless.