Really, someone should use this data to get rid of the idiotic bans on 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.
They’ll take my plastic bags away from my cold, dead fingers.
[Update late morning]
The San Francisco bag ban kills five people a year.
If we could save just one child’s life…
Yeah, well; they don’t ask you about paper anymore and that stuff could be and often was recycled. So are your fingers getting cold?
Paper contaminated with food waste is harder to recycle.
Even washing your bags wouldn’t help, unless you wash them every time you use them–carrying meat in the bags for the evening meal, leaving the used bags in your trunk all day, and reusing them the next day is bad. So maybe you could keep a dozen or so bags in the trunk and toss each bag in the wash after it’s been used? How much water and how much detergent and how much energy does it take to wash a bag as opposed to using a disposable bag?
Amazon has a box at $17/1000 (not Amazon prime); I ought to see if some of the box stores carry them.
Haha, yeah why can’t you just bring your own plastic bags?
It is a pain having to remember to grab a handful before going into the store. It’s easier just to load the stuff back into the shopping cart and wheel the cart out to the car and leave the cart where it blocks a parking spot and some minimum wage worker has to go collect it.
I’m anal enough that I return the cart, but I seem to be in the minority. I tell my wife that the people who leave the carts in the parking places are Democrats–we’re deep blue California so it’s not a bad bet.
Oh. Not surprising–Amazon has some bag racks–I could put one inside the trunk. If I made the bag rack stable enough I could leave items that spill easily in a bag on the rack rather than let them rattle around in the trunk. Maybe I could use them to keep take-out from spilling.
There’s a discount grocery chain here that does some interesting things to keep costs low (and their groceries are cheaper than WalMart while being quite good). For one thing, if you want to use a shopping cart, you have to insert a quarter into a slot. When you return the cart, you get your quarter back. No one ever leaves carts in the parking lot because they want to get their quarter back. It’s a simple and effective idea. Likewise, you bag your own groceries. You can buy bags, bring your own, or use an empty box easily found in the store. Since my wife retired, she does a lot of our grocery shopping at this store because our money goes further. They also don’t accept credit cards, just cash or debit.