Prompted by "Sulaco"'s comment in Monday's post on the Seattle City Council's ban on disposable plastic grocery bags, I found this:
"Reusable Grocery Bags Contaminated With E. Coli, Other Bacteria"
These bags may be friendly to the environment, but not necessarily to you, according to a new report by researchers at two universities.The complete study is here.Reusable grocery bags can be a breeding ground for dangerous food-borne bacteria and pose a serious risk to public health, according to a joint food-safety research report issued today by the University of Arizona and Loma Linda University in California.
One thing I'm wondering about... The darling big-box store of the Left - Costco, doesn't have bags of any sort in their warehouse check-out lines. Instead of a bag, they will give you a free cardboard box. So is this against the Seattle ordinance too? Are stores allowed to give cardboard boxes to their customers free of charge?
If only there was some way, maybe using technology, to clean dirty things.
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on December 21, 2011 05:35 PMThe cloth bags Safeway and other companies sold back in the early 90's were actually... you guessed it... CLOTH of 100% cotton. I have 3. I use them for my library trips. I can and do wash them with germ killing bleach.Posted by: RagnarDanneskold on December 21, 2011 06:22 PM
Those mesh faux-cloth things they sell now are disgusting: they fray, they feel horrible AND the one my son got from one of our state universities was made in China. Try bleach on one of those puppies, you'll get to re-use and recycle it into a body puff and/or pot scrubber.
I shop at non-union, employee owned Winco and happily bag my groceries in the BROWN PAPER BAGS they let us choose instead of those plastic trash can liners.
When I remember to bring & then use my 100% cotton totes, I load my paper bags into them for the SUPPORT the paper bags provide. The cloth bags and the plastic trash can liners mash the tomatoes into the potatoes and make guacamole when I choose avocados for sandwiches and salads.
Smoley @ 3: I can remember when grocery stores offered boxes to shoppers and bound the flaps upright with white cotton string (from a large overhead spool) to keep tall items from falling out of the box. Worked well too.
Smoley again: I'm surprised the neo-Commies aren't employing home-made hemp bags so they could cop a mild buzz chewing on their grocery bags while on their way to shop.
Posted by: Saltherring on December 22, 2011 07:18 AMLeftists don't consider all of the consequences of their failed ideas. In their zeal to recycle, they don't consider all of the extra energy used to recycle versus creating anew. Aluminum makes sense to recycle as is takes a lot of electricity to make Aluminum. However plastic often costs more to clean and recycle than it does to produce anew, even factoring in oil.
That's not to say that we should needlessly waste. But if the market were allowed to determine the best balances of energy usage vs needs, we'd get a lot closer to a truly green solution than through Leftist Statist regulation.
A great example here is in the costs to produce wind and solar energy. Leftists conveniently forget all of the infrastructure, extra copper, service roads, maintenance fleets, etc. it takes to keep up even a few windmill farms, all for an insignificant amount of intermittent energy. If left alone, the market would never waste valuable human and monetary capital on such poor forms of energy production.
We could solve the oil problem, Middle Eastern angst, envionmental concerns over carbon, and lower energy prices in one fell swoop with a concerted effort to produce safe, 4th gen nuclear power designs that can never go supercritical. We could be a world leader in building a new standardized power plant design. Only the USA has the ingeuity, concern for safety, and drive to be the world's modern nuke plant vendor and installer. If we had a real President bent on leadership, we could ignite a US major initiative to achieve such a huge goal. Americans have proven in the past that we can work together to achieve very complex and enormous goals like winning a world war, or getting to the moon.
But Leftists are so bent on hating humans and blocking growth, productivity, cars, energy production, and even such minutia as plastic bags, that we've allowed such petty leaders to cripple our ability to thrive and advance, while at the same time being reduced to a hopeless gridlock of class warfare bickering.
This is Obama's Hope and Change.
Posted by: Jeff B. on December 22, 2011 10:53 AMWhile adding one simple step (throw bags in washing machine after each use) to safe food-handling practices could make this a non-issue, judging from the look and odor of far too many people (not limited to Seattle), I think the local hospitals/clinics will see a sharp increase in E. Coli cases.
As far as I'm concerned, lack of unions would be a good reason TO shop in a given town or city. But, in all truthfulness, I haven't spent a dime in Seattle in years...and don't plan on doing so anytime soon.
Posted by: Saltherring on December 22, 2011 03:05 PMThe biofuel fanatics ignore the inefficiencies and costs of their fuel fantasies. Any one who has bought groceries lately sees the result of the food to fuel idiocy.
At one time it was quite the thing to plant vineyards in France because it made more money and involved fewer pesky peasants than traditional crops. Throw in depleted soil, uncooperative weather, less land for food crops, and a severe food shortage and the French Revolution became a reality. Following a fad at the expense of feeding the citizens is not a good idea.
Posted by: Burdabee on December 22, 2011 03:11 PMhttp://news.consumerreports.org/safety/2010/07/can-reusable-grocery-bags-make-you-sick-or-is-that-just-baloney.html
Posted by: Bill on December 22, 2011 03:16 PMToo bad that Stefan is being laughably dishonest. There are specific exemptions in the ordinance for plastic bags for wrapping "frozen foods, meat or fish", "bulk foods", and "unwrapped prepared foods or bakery goods", to ensure that they aren't contaminated.
Posted by: demo kid on December 22, 2011 04:50 PMWhich is an absolutely meaningless statement without the context of the study. Please at least show some statistical acumen when posting (not to mention quoting the article without attribution). Moreover, the linked article begins by simply stating what they think is a conflict of interest without providing any evidence for such -- which is typical when you really don't have much of substance to say. Besides, it's not like anyone takes CU (*giggle*) seriously anyway.
I'm interested in where the nickel-per-paper-bag is going. I assume the stores get to keep it, which is how their support was paid for. Funny, liberals are usually quite apoplectic when big corporations are given welfare by government fiat.
Posted by: Frank Black on December 22, 2011 04:52 PMIf only there was some way, maybe using technology, to clean dirty things.
MBS thinks the masses are going to do this after every use, meaning he's really stupid, or doesn't give a crap about those who don't (probably the poor and uneducated). Take your pick.
Posted by: Palouse on December 22, 2011 08:17 PMIf you don't wash vegetables that you put in bags with leaking packages of meat or fish, you're going to be cross-contaminating your food anyway, especially if you have your bags in a hot trunk.
Posted by: demo kid on December 22, 2011 08:49 PMYou appear to be going down a very slippery slope here with this appeal to science. I mean, what's next? Reality has a well-known liberal bias!
***This comment was not underwritten by the American Chemistry Council.***
very slippery slope here with this appeal to science.
*********************************
Science you say. Just like the fools who tried to hide their e-mails about GW that wasn't happening.
Yep it was just a error.
Yeah right.
Remember the whole reason for plastic bags. Were killing the trees.
We still have paper bags and the trees are still here. I wonder, more faked science again.
Daniel could come over here and fend them off with his ad hominem attacks from the right, but he is MIA.
Posted by: KDS on December 23, 2011 10:26 AMNo, I don't remember.
Whose reason exactly?
Did the evil librul guberment force stores to provide plastic bags and force you to use plastic bags to save trees?
Do you have a citation you can provide?
***This comment was not underwritten by the American Chemistry Council.***
"Yep, another liberal attempt to reduce population, this one through ecoli."
And the damn liberals (working hand-in-hand with the Gnomes of Zürich) really picked an effective method, huh Doug? At 61 deaths per year in the US from E.coli, it is just a matter of time before your goose is cooked!
***This comment was not underwritten by the American Chemistry Council.***
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on December 23, 2011 11:30 AMSo far the enviroweenies are insisting on remedies that are worse than the ailment. Research dollars should be going towards nuclear enery (fission and fusion), including the use of thorium as a alternative to uranium. Smaller carbon footprint, massive amounts of usable energy generated, and lower carbon emissions.
If you really want to change the habits of the shoppers, allow stores to give a 10% discount for 12 months to any one who brings their own bags and a temporary reduction in B&O taxes for the same stores and a miracle will occur.
Posted by: Burdabee on December 23, 2011 11:53 AM"There was a great hue and cry that paper bags were .."
Really? You know I keep asking for a citation for the repeated claims about that, but neither you nor anyone else making that claim provides one.
When exactly did this "great hue and cry" happen? Who was crying? It wasn't the precursor of the American Chemistry Council crying was it?
***This comment was not underwritten by the American Chemistry Council.***
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on December 23, 2011 01:11 PM
***This comment was not underwritten by George Soros and Communists for American Progress.***
Plastic makers produce the resin used in most reusable bags too, genius. So your feeble attempt to discredit this study is about as worthless as the rest of your posts.
King5 did their own study and found bacteria in reusable bags too. It's not a conspiracy, it's fact - they are breeding grounds for bacteria - and people don't wash them regularly.
If you don't wash vegetables that you put in bags with leaking packages of meat or fish, you're going to be cross-contaminating your food anyway
Ok, but pointing out how other bacteria contamination happens is not a reason to enable even more spread of bacteria with widespread use of bags that enable it.
"Plastic makers produce the resin used in most reusable bags too [...]"
Ergo what?
Anonymous financiers of the the American Chemistry Council make money from all plastic products
THEREFORE
the profitability of all plastic products is the same
Or is it that there is some health danger from reusable bags?
Of course there is bacteria and viral contamination in unclean improperly cared for bags and bathrooms, kitchens, vegetables, computer keyboards, door knobs. . . .
Most intelligent people see this study and its promulgation for what it is. You? :-D
As the libruls in Seattle, Edmonds and Bellingham will surely spread E.coli like the plague across WA, you should probably go Howard Hughs.
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on December 23, 2011 03:50 PMErgo, there is not some grand conspiracy to stop using reusable bags by plastics makers - they would rather both options be available to consumers and let the consumer make the choice. Which is what most people, including those in Seattle, actually want.
Of course there is bacteria and viral contamination in unclean improperly cared for bags
Yes, so banning a cleaner option and charging a tax for paper will surely expand use of these bags exponentially, and therefore will spread bacteria, including e. coli. And for what? Saving marine life that hasn't been proven to have died as a result of these bags? Landfill space? THE HORROR!
Posted by: Palouse on December 23, 2011 04:14 PMAs for the "hue and cry" involving the switch from paper to plastic, much of that was letters to the editor and op-eds. There were even gatherings on the college campus where I went to school.
From my personal experience, most liberals I speak with do very little research on their own and rely on the headlines for their "in-depth" analysis. The uproar over the $30 car tabs is a case in point. Do you need citations for that as well or were you part of the crowd insisting all of the vital state services were going to suffer if the $30 car tab passed?
Posted by: Burdabee on December 23, 2011 06:35 PMThank God we have plastics to trap the carbon in physical form that won't be released into the atmosphere to cause global warming.
Posted by: doug on December 23, 2011 11:40 PMwww.SaveOurChoice.us
ou can print out the referendum petition (both sides...that's vital)
Posted by: Dick on December 26, 2011 09:23 PMI saw in the paper that Bainbridge Island is thinking about a plastic bag pan. I suspect that the Poulsbo grocers all hope it will pass.
Posted by: pfsm on December 27, 2011 06:05 PM