> In total, Britain’s Environment Agency calculated that a conventional cotton bag needed to be reused 173 times to beat plastic

So after a couple years? How is this supposed to be an argument in favor of disposable bags? My reusable ones are just fine after probably at least a decade.

Likewise with the mug; ignoring for a moment that drinking out of a polystyrene cup is disgusting (especially with hot liquids like coffee that one normally uses a mug for), the argument is supposed to be that a mug (a thing that should last a lifetime) is somehow worse than disposable cups because it takes 2-3 years to be better purely on an energy basis?

And the milk bottle: okay, it takes 10 trips to be better; ChatGPT says various sources say a typical bottle lasts 10-30 trips. So it's better. What even is the argument here?

The first two steps are reduce and reuse, after all. Recycle is last.

I was just about to write the same comment about cotton grocery bags. I have been using mine every week for a decade, and they were second-hand, so they're even older than that. I think most people underestimate the durability of even cheap consumer products as long as you treat them with respect and tolerate a little cosmetic wear. Fast fashion is supposed to literally fall apart after less than 10 wears, which is completely outside my lived experience, even as someone who used to shop at such outlets and has received many a cheap swag t-shirt.