Think cloth bags are better for the environment? Think again

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/the-sunday-edition-september-16-2018-1.4822353/think-cloth-bags-are-better-for-the-environment-think-again-1.4822660?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar&fbclid=IwAR0um095iZWEWFqVPX6yvHIvR5L9e4G5HmzrVJQkSgwU3YUjCZtzprubHpc
Cloth bags aren't as environmentally friendly as we think, argues British researcher Jonna Meyhoff Fry. According to her, a cloth bag would have to be used 131 times to equal the environmental impact of one lightweight plastic bag.

Common sense doesn't compute that one. Who's paying the researcher?

Who is paying that researcher? More than likely someone in the oil/ plastic industry with deep pockets.
I have had several of my cloth bags for about 20 years (they still have the Pets Mart logo on them, and say" just one buck, change their luck"),there is no way plastic can compete.

Why and How Should You Clean Reusable Grocery Bags?

https://totebagfactory.com/blogs/news/why-how-clean-reusable-grocery-bags
The researchers learned during their survey that 97% of the respondents never washed their reusable grocery shopping bags. What was worse was that upon testing these bags, experts found E.coli contamination (in over 50% of the total tested bags).

When we pile foods upon foods in our reusable grocery bags, we entertain cross-contamination of foods. Moreover, we also entertain bacteria entering our food chain. If you use a canvas shopping tote bag for groceries, but you also take it to the gym, you risk even more health hazards to affect your family.

It is your answer in a nutshell: clean, reusable grocery bags as often and as carefully as you can. Some specialists say you should use more than one bag for food shopping and wash your bags at the end of the week. Yes, you should also wash poly shopping bags, not only cotton or canvas ones.

Never simple...

Are you trying to tell me that people are so dumb today they need instructions how to keep things clean???
By the way, since I do a lot of shopping at our small local stores, I take my own containers to the butcher, for instance, the shopkeepers have no problem weighing my containers before filling them.
I will admit, I am not sure if this run away train to destroy the planet with our garbage can be stopped, but I'll at least try to help in slowing it down.

Lucky...Just passing some info on that I found useful nothing more...
I too wonder if the train left the station...