Husband and I have debated this one, though I admit we never thought the rise in infectious disease would be measurable. Via HotAir, a fascinating look at the dirty problem associated with reusable grocery bags:
Liberals will have no problem arguing a bird or turtle's life is worth more than a human's because they do it all the time (Wesley J. Smith's "A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy" exposes the grotesque reality of the PETA position). But when children start dying en masse from cross-contamination that could have been so easily avoided by a cheap disposable bag, will some folks wake up? I wonder.
In full disclosure, I have plenty of cloth bags, though I never (ok, rarely) use them for groceries. I color-code our laundry by bag and shuffle it up and down narrow staircases to the laundry room and back to hanging on bedroom doors. Another functions as a great swim-class bag. But none carry raw meat or poultry, and it'll likely stay that way.
Cross-posted at politicaljunkieMom.
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I rarely wash my cloth bags, but that will have to change. Or else I'm going to get rid of all of them. Luckily, there are (currently) no plastic bag bans in my part of Canada, but I resent having to pay extra for plastic bags.
ReplyDeleteIn my part of Canada there's usually a 5cent charge per bag, but at the Superstore I went to recently, they don't have bags or boxes or anything. It's for the environment. I left all my groceries on the counter and left.
DeleteIn my part of Canada there's usually a 5cent charge per bag, but at the Superstore I went to recently, they don't have bags or boxes or anything. It's for the environment. I left all my groceries on the counter and left.
DeleteI'm sorry, this "debate" is ridiculous...the solution to dirty reusable bags is WASHING them, not banning them. You'd get sick if you didn't wash your dishes either.
ReplyDeleteI'm not suggesting banning reusable bags. Just stating the obvious, that there are always unintended consequences (i.e. the banning of plastic bags).
DeleteSo the environmental solution to plastic bags is using detergent and hot water everytime you go to the store?
DeleteAnd washing the cloth bags, of course, uses more energy then producing and distributing them. Plus, it adds extra labor to accomplish to keep the household going.Which is a cost.
ReplyDeleteBut, if it mskes YOU feel good, YOU wash them. I'll stick with disposable plastic bags.
Heh. I do enough laundry, too. We re-use our disposable plastics as trashcan liners in the bathrooms.
DeleteIn our local supermarket I once watched a Prius driving princess instruct the clerk to line her cloth grocery bags with the disposable plastic bags. She didn't want her breast cancer "awareness" bags to get dirty!
ReplyDeleteRef:"...we never thought the rise in infectious disease would be measurable"
ReplyDeleteHaving personally been involved in various epidemiological studies including paralytic shelfish poisoning on 15 miles of California coastline and a plague surveilance program in the ground squirel population in parts of California I recently came across a plague-like virus that is immeasureable unless it is eradicated quickly. You can view the latest video here:
http://normanhooben.blogspot.com/2012/06/plague-like-virus-spreads-across-land.html or watch it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSqpHKOv2DE
I use reusables, but only to put my groceries that are already in plastic bags in (oh gosh - what an awful sentence, but you get the point.)
ReplyDeleteOne of our local stores uses plastic bags that are a bit bigger and stronger than most. I use them for a myriad of things. Plastic bags disintegrate fairly fast in land fills. This is really about littering. Hey, I have an idea. How about we ban everything that people litter - like McDonald boxes?