According to the study that was sponsored by the plastic industry in Canada, which was done by independent labs, 64
percent of the bags were contaminated with some sort of bacteria. Of
those, 40 percent had yeast or mold, and some even had fecal intestinal
bacteria in them. Obviously a lot of the bacteria is coming from
vegetables, fruits and other foods that go into the bags, as well as
from wherever the bags are being stored, including under the sink.
Fecal matter is a bit troubling, but the main issue here is that people
just need to wash their bags and it is not the bags themselves creating
the bacteria, but people’s unclean habits.
It should be noted that the companies that did the study for the plastic industry were independent and non-biased.
It is not as if people are sharing reusable bags at the store and
transferring fecal matter to each other in a disarray of bacteria and
feces being flung throughout the store. Putting your reusable bags in
the wash with your cloths, or just doing a quick wash by hand is enough
to fix this.
While I am sure the plastic industry would be happy if we went back
to plastic bags, rather than away from them, pulling desperate moves
like this in an effort to scare people away from reusable bags is just
sad. Reusable bags decay much faster than plastic bags, which stay
around for 1,000 years. Reusable bags don’t clog the stomachs of sea
creatures and they do not float away in the breeze, eventually settling
in the great garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean.
So, if you are using reusable bags, please be sure to wash them every so often. That is all you have to do to make these work for you and to make them safe for you. Also, if you have fecal matter on your hands and you are getting that into the bags, maybe you should wash your hands more, just at thought.
Plastic bags are a thing of the past, or at least they should be. If you use plastic bags, start using reusable bags. You will be doing the Earth and your fellow species a favor. Don’t listen to plastic industry sponsored studies.
