Alt text: Meme caption: "When you forget to bring your reusable bags to the grocery store", below is an image of Dexter from Dexter's laboratory weeping as he strokes a picture of the earth, saying "I have failed you!"
Last I remember, a cloth bag needs to be used for a minimum of 1000 grocery trips for it to even begin to offset the environmental cost of making it.
Now, I've had mine for 5 years. So I'm making good progress.
But I do miss the plastic ones just because I always used them as garbage bags. The tax on plastic grocery bags are nuts. They cost a buck each. Unless you buy 50 of them for garbage use... then they're all of a sudden dirt cheap and so thin it feels like breathing on them will poke a hole.