If it's any of the Karens I know they would go off on you if it was a bag from a discount store like Aldi, Walmart, TJ Maxx, etc and only expect something like whole foods

Good deed and possibly faster queue? I would clap for you too, if I were there.

Just put the second car in a bag. Then it's handy when you go shopping.

Just need to have enough bags to support a slow "when you get to it" rotation. Bags stay in trunk (you might need to double the number of bags you have to support a second vehicle), then grab a bag of bags when going shopping, fill bags at store, empty and full ones go in trunk when leaving store, full bags go inside to wherever is most convenient, then when they are empty, place them near the door. Then, on some trip to the car, remember to grab the bags by the door and stick them into the trunk and you've completed one cycle for those bags.

If they get dirty, put them near the laundry instead of the door and either mix them in with another load of laundry or do them separately if you're getting that many bags dirty often enough to justify a load of bags. If they aren't specifically dirty, they should be fine. They aren't like clothes where you're slowly sweating and getting skin oils into them so need to wash them on the regular. Just turn them inside out to make sure the bits of onion skin all get washed out.

Same in Ontario, Canada.

Lived in my house for a few years and bought like 3 plastic bags in that time. We also took a few from my partners family when we moved in so we did start with some.

Stats show a vast drop in how many plastic bags are used just by charging a tiny bit of money for them. Plus by having a cost now it makes sense to make them better.

I can't find the video now, but a couple years ago there was a science creator who broke down the overall environmental cost (co2 production, manufacturing chemicals, microplastics, etc.) of producing the materials needed to make the various bags, manufacturing, transportation, and time to break down/end of life impacts. The single use plastic bags were less impactful than any reusable bags by far. This can be increased by reusing the single use bags as you would a reusable bag before using it for garbage like you do. Only paper bags were marginally better than single use plastic, but even that is unsustainable as it is still a single use item, and produces all kinds of chemicals during the pulping process. Not to mention only ~50% get recycled, leading to more forestry to supply materials.

All that to say you're right. The 3 R's are the way to go.

My personal pet peeve are the "environmentalists" who rush out to buy new "environmentally friendly" options rather than using what they currently have until it needs to be replaced. Particularly since most of the organic replacements don't last as long. Yes, the plastic version will end up in the landfill regardless, but they could have reduced their overall impact by 5 to 500 organic whatevers in the meantime. Eco-consumerist nonsense. /rant

How much material and energy goes into making those thin plastic grocery bags?

its where they end up. They last >100 years.

I recently realised that I don't even need to use up my dwindling supply of former grocery now mostly garbage bags for smaller garbage cans around my place. Previously, I would remove the bag from the bin, tie it up and drop it in the main garbage, usually after emptying it because otherwise it would be too full (and I'm in a condo with a dumpster, so timing garbage pickups isn't an issue).

My new method is to just grab the whole smaller bin and dump the contents out into the main bin, reusing the bag unless it got destroyed since it was last emptied. My main bin is my kitchen bin, so the others are mostly getting dry things anyways. It's the adhesives that can mess up the bags now, though if it's just a piece of sticky paper, could just leave it stuck to the bag for a while if it isn't interfering with other things going in.

I've been using fancier store bags (sometimes the reusable plastic ones, sometimes the paper ones that already look like gift bags just with the store name instead of Elsa or whatever) as gift bags, mostly because buying special packaging for gifts is just a waste, especially because the kid only cares about what's on the bag until they can get at what's in the bag, then it usually sits somewhere maybe holding a bunch of gifts for a bit, probably getting ripped before it gets folded flat to be used in the future, though I'm sure some people just throw them out.

The article briefly mentions this, but having lived in states with plastic bag bans, and states without - well drive through the countryside and count all the plastic bags in ditches, trees, streams. Paper might be more intensive to produce, but the lingering effects of plastic bags are being underestimated I think.