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As the article says, there was nothing wrong with cloth bags. We just somehow got into this habit of getting plastic bags. I use cloth bags all the time and haven't had any issues with them. They don't deform and topple on their own so spillage etc. isn't even an issue. Also, it's very easy to keep a couple of them in the car, a couple at the house etc. Remembering to bring one isn't an issue either.

The reuse cases they mention in the article are just laughable. In all three cases, the bag ends up in landfill along with unrecycled food/dog waste.

However, simply banning stuff makes people feel uneasy. There was a supermarket in UK which did a very clever thing. They printed the membership-discount barcode on the cheap cloth bag they sold. So if you wanted discounts, you remembered to bring your cloth bag. Something like that could make people view this as a more positive thing rather than government horsing around, banning stuff without good reason.