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The Evolution of Reusable Bags
Is it as good as we think it is?
“Plastic free living is a habit. If we love trees, flowers, and humanity, we must cultivate that.” — Amit Ray
We are seeing the demise of the plastic bag and more canvas bags when buying our foods, but how good are they?
Has there really been an evolution of the reusable bag or are we simply going back to what worked many, many years ago before plastic?
Here in N.Z. and in other countries where people have started to embrace the canvas styled tote bags, I was a bit concerned when I came across an article titled ‘Are Reusable Shopping Bags Making Us Sick’? The article said that “studies seem to link reusable grocery bags to food-borne illness” along with the increase in stolen food.
Well, it was the illness part that concerned me. I would hope that people would read the entire article before getting worried. It went on to add that although different microbes were found and “more than half the bags contained some sort of coliform bacteria”, what the study didn’t say were the specific strains of E. coli found in the bags. According to Dr Susan Fernyak, director of San Francisco’s Communicable Disease and Control Prevention division,
