credit: Project GreenBag

Plaintiff: The Plastic Industry

Defendant: Consumers

Charge: All of those reusable bags you’re using are cutting into our profits dirty and making you sick.

Exhibit A: A “study” from the Canadian Plastic Industry Association showing that there are bacteria on reusable bags.

Exhibit B: A “study” funded by the American Chemistry Council showing that there are bacteria on reusable bags.  Also, if you mix salmonella with meat juice, coat a bag in it, put that bag in another plastic bag, and then put that in the warm trunk of your car for a few hours, the bacteria can grow very slowly.

The prosecution calls its first witness, the researchers engaged in producing Exhibit B:

The results of this study indicate that large numbers of bacteria occur in reusable bags and are capable of increasing 10-fold in a trunk within a two hours period of time.  Slightly more than half of the bags contained coliform bacteria, indicating contamination by raw meats or other uncooked food products. The indicator bacterium E. coli, used to indicate fecal contamination, was detected in 12% of the bags. The presence of these bacteria demonstrates reusable bags do get contaminated by enteric organisms and a risk from food borne pathogens does exist. Attempts to isolate Salmonella and Listeria bacteria from the bags were not successful in this study, but this may only represent the limited number of samples that were collected.

The defense calls Consumer Reports to cross examine the witness:

The American Chemistry Council is the trade group that advocates on behalf of plastic-bag manufacturers. Now why would the folks who make plastic grocery bags want to cast doubts on the safety of reusable grocery bags? Oh, right.

The researchers tested for pathogenic bacteria Salmonella and Listeria, but didn’t find any, nor did they find strains of E. coli that could make one sick. They only found bacteria that don’t normally cause disease, but do cause disease in people with weakened immune systems.

Our food-safety experts were underwhelmed as well. “A person eating an average bag of salad greens gets more exposure to these bacteria than if they had licked the insides of the dirtiest bag from this study,” says Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist at Consumers Union. “These bacteria can be found lots of places, so no need to go overboard.”

The defense now calls its own witness, a peer reviewed article in the International Journal of Food Microbiology:

While the literature documents the universal occurrence of heterotrophic plate count (HPC) bacteria in soils, foods, air, and all sources of water [and plastic bags! -ed.], there is a lingering question as to whether this group of organisms may signal an increased health risk when elevated populations are present in drinking water. This paper reviews the relevant literature on HPC bacteria in drinking water, the lack of clinical evidence that elevated populations or specific genera within the HPC flora pose an increased health risk to any segment of the population, and the appropriate uses of HPC data as a tool to monitor drinking water quality changes following treatment. It finds no evidence to support health-based regulations of HPC concentrations.

The defense rests, your honor.

I really wish this would be the last time that industries use fear mongering and our national obsession with killing “germs” to make their assaults on people and the environment, but it seems to be just getting started.  Fight back by taking ONLY reusable bags to the store, washing them once in awhile (the study found washing to kill 99.9% of the bacteria), and using a separate bag for meats.

It seems plastics industry is using “research studies” the way a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, rather than illumination.

Can't get enough? Try these related posts:

1. Plastic Bag’s Last Stand
2. Plastic bag manufacturers sue reusable bag maker.
3. BizBuzz: Plastic Bags into Oil
4. News Flash: Soap Kills Germs
5. You’re drinking more sugar than you think.