The NJ bag law seems to be less than two years old. And comes at the tail of a worldwide pandemic when people’s habits changed drastically. I look forward to seeing a similar study in ~3 more years. I suspect that the situation will improve.<p>My experience is that it took me a while to get used to using reusable bags, though this was long before any bag banning discussions were truly being held (outside of niche groups) and therefore the consequences of forgetting bags was much lower (I’d just get a single use thin plastic or paper bag). But I got there and now only forget if my trip is unintended.<p>As the article notes, delivery and curbside pick up end up giving you new bags each time. There is certainly room for improvement here. I was using a delivery service that took back their (cloth) bags. I’ve even used some that offer refunds per bag exchanged.<p>One thing that stood out as slightly absurd to me from this article:<p>> Many consumers likely determine it’s safer to pitch their reusable bags after a few uses rather than risk getting sick. And while some might clean their bags over and over to keep using them, perhaps more shoppers determine it’s not worth their time and energy.<p>This seems pretty unlikely to me. I doubt the vast majority don’t thing about or care about this. My observation is that people, in general, don’t think about things being germ-laden without them being visibly dirty.