In Austin, there was a short period of time where all grocery stores were legally required to ditch plastic bags.
A successful campaign strategy for city council right after that was to run against the plastic bag ban because people kept forgetting their reusable bags. Everybody agreed they are bad but individualism and a sense of laziness prevailed. This is America.
I know at least in Georgia (US), they still had those tissue paper thin bags at Target when I was there on business earlier in the year. They may have had reusable bags that you could buy didn't notice any), yet I didn't see a single person using one.
Yeah, but depending on the state, they're not widely adopted. A lot of people aren't going to spend the extra money for reusable bags unless they're forced to.