Reducing plastic waste has lost the plot

The plastic bag changes in the last few years have seemed like a waste to me. We used to reuse the bags in the small trash cans around the house and we never needed to buy trash bags for those trash cans. Now I’m buying small trash can bags because the plastic bags from the grocery store are all much thicker than they used to be. The insult too is that you have to pay $.08 for each bag. But today, the absurdity went up to 11. The bags are so thick that they are heat sealed together so badly they couldn’t be separated. Of course I only found this out once all my groceries were in it so I wasn’t going to unload them. So I just took the whole mess of it, judging stares from the self-checkout person and all. How is this reducing plastic waste again?