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The Straight Story

(48,121 posts)
Tue Feb 5, 2013, 11:44 AM Feb 2013

Do plastic bag bans help spread disease? [View all]

Spreading Disease

Most alarmingly, the industry has highlighted news reports linking reusable shopping bags to the spread of disease. Like this one, from the Los Angeles Times last May: “A reusable grocery bag left in a hotel bathroom caused an outbreak of norovirus-induced diarrhea and nausea that struck nine of 13 members of a girls’ soccer team in October, Oregon researchers reported Wednesday.” The norovirus may not have political clout, but evidently it, too, is rooting against plastic bags.

Warning of disease may seem like an over-the-top scare tactic, but research suggests there’s more than anecdote behind this industry talking point. In a 2011 study, four researchers examined reusable bags in California and Arizona and found that 51 percent of them contained coliform bacteria. The problem appears to be the habits of the reusers. Seventy-five percent said they keep meat and vegetables in the same bag. When bags were stored in hot car trunks for two hours, the bacteria grew tenfold.

That study also found, happily, that washing the bags eliminated 99.9 percent of the bacteria. It undercut even that good news, though, by finding that 97 percent of people reported that they never wash their bags.

Jonathan Klick and Joshua Wright, who are law professors at the University of Pennsylvania and George Mason University, respectively, have done a more recent study on the public-health impact of plastic-bag bans. They find that emergency-room admissions related to E. coli infections increased in San Francisco after the ban. (Nearby counties did not show this increase.) And this effect showed up as soon as the ban was implemented. (“There is a clear discontinuity at the time of adoption.”) The San Francisco ban was also associated with increases in salmonella and other bacterial infections. Similar effects were found in other California towns that adopted such laws.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-04/the-disgusting-consequences-of-liberal-plastic-bag-bans.html



Assessment of the Potential for Cross-contamination of Food Products by Reusable Shopping Bags
David L. Williams, Charles P. Gerba, Sherri Maxwell, Ryan G. Sinclair
Biblographic citation: Food Protection Trends, vol. 31, no. 8, pp. 508-513, August 2011
Volume 31, Issue 8


The purpose of this study was to assess the potential for cross-contamination of food products by reusable bags used to carry groceries. Reusable bags were collected at random from consumers as they entered grocery stores in California and Arizona. In interviews, it was found that reusable bags are seldom if ever washed and often used for multiple purposes. Large numbers of bacteria were found in almost all bags and coliform bacteria in half. Escherichia coli were identified in 8% of the bags, as well as a wide range of enteric bacteria, including several opportunistic pathogens. When meat juices were added to bags and stored in the trunks of cars for two hours, the number of bacteria increased 10-fold, indicating the potential for bacterial growth in the bags. Hand or machine washing was found to reduce the bacteria in bags by > 99.9%. These results indicate that reusable bags, if not properly washed on a regular basis, can play a role in the cross-contamination of foods. It is recommended that the public be educated about the proper care of reusable bags by means of printed instructions on the bags or through public service announcements.

http://www.foodprotection.org/publications/food-protection-trends/article-archive/2011-08assessment-of-the-potential-for-cross-contamination-of-food-products-by-reusable-shopping-bag/

Note: The first thing mentioned in the article on this, Contaminated reusable grocery bag causes gastric illness outbreak, is pretty much BS (you can see why here: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/09/news/la-heb-grocery-bag-diarrhea-20120509 ) but is does bring up some interesting questions about meat, etc that may leak into the bags and such.

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Do plastic bag bans help spread disease? [View all] The Straight Story Feb 2013 OP
from the available science the answer is yes AngryAmish Feb 2013 #1
Damn. Nothing is simple, is it? randome Feb 2013 #2
OOoohh...like I wrote in response to a proposal by a wannabe repug for Congress this last... Tikki Feb 2013 #3
But fruits and vegetables go in the little plastic bags first FarCenter Feb 2013 #4
Some people do not use the plastic bags. RC Feb 2013 #6
I use the following for produce: kentauros Feb 2013 #15
Those 'reusable bags' get set on the floor, food check out counters, kitchen counters, car trunks. RC Feb 2013 #5
The baby seats on grocery carts are rife with bacteria LiberalEsto Feb 2013 #7
I do put my meat in a plastic bag gollygee Feb 2013 #8
I bought a few reusable bags once. liberal_at_heart Feb 2013 #9
I use the reusable freezer bags for meat and frozen Viva_La_Revolution Feb 2013 #10
You can wash them. That said, I usually get paper bags, which I use for compost & recycling. Warren DeMontague Feb 2013 #11
Many localities especially rural marions ghost Feb 2013 #12
I get the paper bags and use them for garbage flamingdem Feb 2013 #13
Take a basket to the grocery store. JDPriestly Feb 2013 #14
exactly. meat left in the car for 2 hours? robinlynne Feb 2013 #17
This brings up a real question about the environmental benefits of cloth bags. Xithras Feb 2013 #16
We only generate our energy through fossil fuels BECAUSE of the lobbyists from those industries, etc robinlynne Feb 2013 #18
Brought to you by the plastic bag industry? Retrograde Feb 2013 #19
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