Plastic Bag Ban Responsible For Spike In E. Coli Infections?

From Huff Po: SAN FRANCISCO -- Is your tote bag making you sick?

A research paper published last year by professors at the University of Pennsylvania and George Mason University found San Francisco's ban on plastic bags has had significant negative repercussions on public health.

The study, released in August, found a spike in San Francisco hospital emergency room treatment due to E. coli infections and a 46 percent increase in deaths from foodborne illness in the three months after the bag ban went into effect in 2007. E. coli bacteria, common in the human intestine and frequent suspects in food poisoning, can range from harmless to lethal.

Laws against plastic bags often encourage the use of reusable totes to transport groceries. But as people tend to neglect washing those bags, increased food contamination becomes likely.

"Using standard estimates of the statistical value of life," the study's authors point out dryly, "we show that the health costs associated with the San Francisco ban swamp any budgetary savings from reduced litter."

San Francisco was one of the world's first major cities to pass a ban on the use of non-compostable plastic bags. The measure was gradually phased into effect, with full enforcement in 2012. Retailers are allowed to sell sturdier, compostable, easier to recycle plastic bags, as well as their paper counterparts, for 10 cents each.

The study's findings echo a 2011 paper conducted by researchers at the University of Arizona and the Loma Linda University School of Public Heath. In that study, the authors looked at reusable shopping bags taken from randomly selected individuals at California and Arizona grocery stores, identifying E. coli bacteria in 8 percent of all bags surveyed. However, washing the bags, either by hand or in a washing machine, eliminated 99.9 percent of the pathogens.

Interviews for that research revealed about half the individuals surveyed used their bags more then once per week, three-quarters didn't separate meats from vegetables and only 3 percent cleaned their bags regularly.

The study was harshly criticized by environmentalists, as its authors received monetary support from the American Chemistry Council, a trade group representing the interests of plastic bag manufacturers.

Many plastic bag ban proponents said the new study is also largely inaccurate.

"[Its] assertions are completely ridiculous and unfounded," Jennie Romer, Atlantic region director of the Clean Seas Coalition and founder of PlasticBagLaws.org, told The Huffington Post. She said the study focused on a period before the ban took effect, "so this data would not be relevant."

San Francisco is one of over 40 municipalities in California that have enacted bans on plastic bags. Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) recently proposed a a bill that would ban plastic bags statewide at all large grocery stores and retail locations. "To continue the use of these bags would ignore the convincing body of global evidence proving that these bags are having a drastic effect on marine ecocultures," Levine said in a statement. "Additionally, there are several easily available and affordable alternatives to plastic bags. We need to ban these bags once and for all."

Worldwide, cities and towns have taken similar measures, outright bans to plastic bag taxes.

Romer insisted that as people spend more time using reusable bags, they will understand that the bags need to be washed, much like dirty clothing.

A blog post on the The Learning Channel's website details some tips for keeping your reusable shopping bags clean, such as carrying bins for produce, separating meat and fish from other groceries to prevent cross-contamination and letting the empty bags air out after coming home from shopping.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Comments

[Luci F]

And correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't bags like thsi also found to be chalk full of lead?

[The Last Archimedean]

This isn't a difficult concept: if you use your reusable bag for shopping, wash it before you go shopping again.

I don't understand why some peole can't grasp that.

[SCS]

"[Its] assertions are completely ridiculous and unfounded," Jennie Romer, Atlantic region director of the Clean Seas Coalition and founder of PlasticBagLaws.org, told The Huffington Post."

The hell it is. The big metropolitan city neighboring my sleepy little suburb just enacted a bag ban. Increase in the usage of green bags went up in our area because a lot of people shop in the city. The VAST MAJORITY of the bags I see come through my line are varying levels of disgusting. They pick up smoke from cigarettes, hair from animals, dirt from previous grocery trips, and occasionally roaches or other invasive pests in the owners household. A lot of them smell moldy because they weren't aired out or cleaned after wet items were bagged in them.

I've handled bags with dried blood, spoiled milk - substances that I couldn't even identify (or want to). Fact of the matter is, most people don't clean their bags as often as they should - if at all.

Beyond the chance of cross contamination for the people who use them, it's a health hazard for workers who have to handle them. I can't tell you how many times a bagger has broken out in hives or had a sneezing fit because they unknowingly picked up a bag covered in cat or dog hair.

Yeah, the obvious answer is to wash your bags - but that takes sense that a lot of people don't have. Until they do, the above is what you have to look forward to in a city with a bag ban.

[Potatohead]

*Starts to read arti - distracted by picture of cat in bag*

[Miniki]

Isn't e-coli a bacteria that dies by cleaning thoroughly the food?

I don't understand how can this happen on a first world country when in my third world country we have used reusable bags since my grandmother was very young to shop at street markets and other not so clean places, and nothing like this happen here, I've never gotten sick or heard of someone getting sick and I know we don't clean our bags that often.

Are we cleaner or just lucky? Maybe we have a better inmune system.

Seriously, I don't get it. Not to be mean or something but I can't believe this is true.

[Skittles]

Thouroughly cleaning your food, and/or fully cooking it keeps you safe. I read through the studies and frankly they were piss poor. Their wasn't enough verifiable data to draw a sound scientific conclusion. All they did was compare the number of deaths that were marked as intestinal distress(it might not have been that exact term) without any indicator that the people who died used a reusable bag, whether or not they washed it if they did, or even whether or not E. Coli was even the cause. These increases could just as easily come from food safety regulations not being followed by a variety of manufacturures, not just from bags. That is bad bad bad science and those colleges should be ashamed.

[Techtyger]

Miniki: a healthy immune system is like a muscle, it needs things to work against. The germophobe culture that makes everything antibiotic is actually making it worse... keeping everything sterile around them means that as soon as they're exposed to something, they have no defenses... as well as the antibiotic everything making antibiotic-resistant germs, so it messes up everybody.

There should still be plastic bags for meat and things prone to oozing. Don't need to put EVERYTHING in them, but it's just good business practice to prevent making your customers sick.

[ecigarette]

The germophobe culture that makes everything antibiotic is actually making it worse.

[electronic cigarette review]

I've never gotten sick or heard of someone getting sick.