[picapp align="none" wrap="false" link="term=reusable+grocery+bag&iid=1208404" src="http://view.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/1208404/whole-foods-bans-plastic/whole-foods-bans-plastic.jpg?size=500&imageId=1208404" width="500" height="333" /]
Death in a handbag.
I've been hearing reports that reusable grocery bags are somewhat unhealthy for a while now, but someone's actually gone and put it to the test:
DENVER -- They are good for the environment, but reusable grocery bags are also a breeding ground for bacteria.
...
Marchetta brought the lab results to Dr. Michelle Barron, the infectious disease expert at the University of Colorado Hospital.
"Wow. Wow. That is pretty impressive," said Barron.
...
She admitted she was shocked at what was found at the bottom of the bags."We're talking in the million range of bacteria," she said.
Once again we see that backwards-thinking morons endanger the health of our entire country. And yet, we still allow ourselves to be browbeaten senseless with the same unthinking "Go Green" nonsense time and time again.
Will it ever end?
Anyway, the next time some hippy walks up to you and demands that you give up your disposable bag, tell them to take a hike—and tell 'em to take their hippy germs with 'em!
Comments:
Orfan,
It's not like we pile trash on top of each other ala Idiocracy (or heck, even Wall-E). Modern landfills are more compact than ever before, and far more efficient than they've ever been. I don't see the use of plastic as being a major problem in terms of waste generation, given that we shred and incinerate just about everything that goes into a landfill these days (reducing it to ash a fraction of its original size). And here in the county I live, we turn the buried trash into even more energy by converting its methane into electricity—producing even higher levels of efficiency from a process that's clearly 21st century.
Clearly, we've already solved many of the technological problems inherent in waste removal. So why do we continually find the need to return to the scare tactics and booga-boos when subjects like this are raised?
An interesting question, for sure.
Anyway, thanks very much for sharing your thoughts! It's good to know someone is still reading this site once in a while. :-D
Regards,
Brian
(PS: My writing skills are "clearly" rusty as all heck. My apologies for the tortured English above... :) )
This story is, of course, inaccurate, and it is intended to play on the public's fears, without providing context.
Use both the convenient plastic bags, and when you can, employ a re-usable bag when that suits your purpose. I use the re-usable bags for short shopping trips, or when I go to a store that provides a discount for using your own container.
Bacteria are indeed everywhere in the environment. Some bacteria are beneficial, such as those that help plants fix nitrogen and thereby generate nutrients for the plants.
Of course if you dump leaky chicken containers into you re-usable bag, but then do not wash the bag, you will have a high level of bacteria.
As an alternative, I suggest that shoppers do not touch the meat/poultry containers with their bare hands, and instead, place your hand in one of the clear bags provided at most stores, then pick-up the meat container, reversing the thin bag over the container. You can scan right through these thin plastic bags.
Without a doubt, using reusable ANYTHING, will provide a site where bacteria can grow. So when we elect to use re-usable items, we must also keep them clean.
Re-usable bags are environmentally friendly, but they can also be more convenient and a money saver for the citizen. Several stores offer a discount for using the re-usable bags.
COSTCO does not provide bags at all. By using the re-usable bag when I shop, I limit the number of impulse buys that I would otherwise make, since I am limited to what will fit in the bag that I brought along with me.
When you use re-usable bags, you will have to occasionally wash the bags, and whenever something has spilled out into the bags, in order to keep the bags clean and suitable for re-use.
Those plastic bags are not as horrible for the environment as some green-weenies seem to think. First, they are very cheap to make, and they are themselves re-usable. I re-use the plastic bags for all sorts of storage and transport uses. The plastic bags are much more eco-friendly than paper bags, and the paper bags harbor roach eggs. Roaches love the glue that they use to make paper bags and they lay their eggs in the creases of the bag where there is glue, which serves as a ready source of food for the newly hatched roach eggs. So, if you get cardboard (including cereal boxes) or paper bags from your store, do not store the material in your home. Send all of those paper products right into the paper recycling bin.
The whole disposable bag drama is complete nonsense. Disposable bags aren't even that bad for the environment, the claims against them have been grossly exaggerated. I encourage all of you to check out the link below. Although the site is funded by companies in the plastics industry, it is very informative and has a lot of impartial and unbiased information from third party sources and studies.
But you don't understand! Here are many species of bacteria that have probably been SAVED FROM EXTINCTION!
#7, could you please add a link to this experiment carried out by the Canadian teenager?
Danke
Hey there,
While I personally prefer disposable bags (I reuse them, mostly for cat litter), I think the main reason reusable bags have been pushed is this:
It's been pretty successful in my city; I haven't seen such a tree in a few years.
The #4 comment above says, "This story is, of course, inaccurate, and it is intended to play on the public's fears, without providing context.". Nope, about 30 seconds of web search brings up this news story ( http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/25181234/detail.html ) and this from Freakonomics ( http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/the-downside-of-reusable-grocery-bags/ ) referring to the same story. Now, consider - washing reusable bags solves the problem, yes? But that means using water and soap and other materials and putting wear and tear on the washing machine. The reusable bag PROBABLY ends up using more resources than disposable bags. Depressing, isn't it?
We could go back to paper--but seriously, I throw my cloth bags in the laundry as soon as I empty the groceries. Plastic of all kinds is a real problem. Our world had become mass producers of "garbage".