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It's as if one can't legislate away every problem.

> I go to a thai place in SF that skirts the ban by using the heavy "reusable" bags as disposable ones. There's no difference between these and actual disposable bags other than that they are thicker. They're still small and worthless to reuse. And there's no chance to ask not to get one.

If there is no chance to ask not to get one, they aren't, as I understand it, "skirting" the ban, they are straight-up violating it just as much as if they were using the regular disposable bags in the same role rather than the heavier, notionally reusable ones (presuming, of course, they are covered by the ban at all; I think there are scale rules on who is covered, so they may be a non-covered entity that just has been less able to source the old bags because of the ban.)

Oh, they're different. They cost more, take five or ten times as much plastic to make, take more fuel to transport, and take up more space in landfills.

Think about just how little material the thin bags use, and think about how many of them you'd have to stack to equal the thickness of the thick bag.

They can't even be used as a garbage bag in a small wastepaper bin, because they're too small.