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I think that in this particular instance, it is simply that the rules as written are bad. If you want to incentivize people avoiding single-use bags, then the following should work out fine:
The cashier would simply have a line item "all-reusable discount", and the computer would calculate the discount. Sure, you could still have discussions about what counts as a "reusable bag". Is any bag which was not provided by the store for free ok? What if someone buys a roll of garbage bags and then proceeds to use them to transport the groceries? But you would at least no longer be vulnerable to the exploit you describe.
Meanwhile in Germany, the thin plastic bags for loose fruits and vegetables are free, but every other bag will cost you. Nor will most supermarkets sell you shitty single-use plastic bags. Your options are to either spend half a Euro on a shitty paper bag which will probably fail if you fill it up, or pay a Euro (or two?) for a robust reusable plastic bag. I own perhaps eight of the latter and they can be reused for dozens of shopping trips easily.
Removing the discount for not having enough reuseable bags is a bad system. First, you are still saving the store money/reducing waste by bringing your own bag, so there is not a good financial/environmental reason. Second, this creates an incentive for buyers to limit the size pf their purchases to the bags they brought, which means more trips (bad environmentally) and smaller orders (bad financially).
The per bag system is basically fine. People hate the penalty of having to buy bags, so inplementing this without a legal mandate is very risky for the business. The amount of people who would spend the time to maximize the per bag discount is very very small, and the loss from this is also very small.
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