Paper, Plastic or Food Borne Disease

[ncargat1]

Here is a shock, it turns out that cost was not the only positive bi-product of the disposable paper or plastic bags. I am very much in favor of people wanting to behave in a responsible manner toward the local environment, but these Eco-wackos with their "mandatory bans" of bags, actual bacteria killing phosphates in our soaps, some actual chlorine in our household cleaning products, etc....are going to cause a modern day epidemic sooner or later.

......From now on, though, I’m going to feel less guilty after coming across this working paper that suggests reusable shopping bags can kill you. Recent years have seen a raft of bans put in place on plastic bags—Los Angeles and San Francisco both have them, as does China. In their paper, University of Pennsylvania economist Jonathan Klick and the lawyer Joshua Wright decided to look at emergency room admissions for illnesses related to food-borne bacteria before and after San Francisco County imposed its ban in 2007. They found that the problem had increased by more than one fourth, and that deaths had risen by the same amount.

The issue, it seems, is that the vast majority of shoppers who re-use bags never clean them. This is not a surprise; I don’t either, any more than I clean the bag I take to work every day. Most people also don’t pay close attention to whether they’re using a bag to carry mesclun greens and apples that they used a week earlier to tote chicken breasts or other raw meat—or for that matter, a dog leash and their soccer cleats

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-15/paper-or-plastic-or-deadly-food-borne-pathogens

[gator1946]

Go Green!!!