In my experience a single reusuable tote bag can carry 8x of a typical grocery store plastic bag. We have bags that are 6 years old and probably been used more

In my experience a single reusuable tote bag can carry 8x of a typical grocery store plastic bag. We have bags that are 6 years old and probably been used more than 200 times. They are polypropylene bags which apparently are often made from recycled bags anyway. As for reusing plastic bags I do that as well as inevitable you will pick up some. As for washing bags I almost never do because almost everything put in the bag is in some other container. At least you have the option with reusable bags to clean them and thus could pre remove residues and toxins. With plastic bags you might be exposed to various toxins (albeit probably at low levels). Just pickup and smell new plastic bags if you don't believe me. Ideally you shouldn't smell anything but I almost always do which means something volatile is being released. The other issue is plastic bags aren't just bad because they take oil and energy to make... they are pretty awful for wild life. I have actually had to help turtles in the Charles River get out of plastic bags. Apparently poly bags take 11x what it takes to make a single plastic bag [1]. But this again doesn't take into account how much you can overload a reusable bag with out them breaking and previously mentioned points (as well as being far more comfortable to hold on to... I just love how plastic bags cut off blood supply to fingers). As for paper bags... they rip and suck in the rain. [1]: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-reusable-bags-worse-for-environment-than-plastic-2014-01-09 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-reusable-bags-worse-for...