Your Reusable Bags: Probably Filled With Bacteria

Do you still use plastic bags? If not, chances are you're carrying around a reusable bag for groceries... and like any other good deed, this one's not going unpunished either. So a little heads up: you may want to make sure you're regularly washing your reusables, because it's now been found that they're most likely carrying around large amounts of bacteria!

More specifically, "coliform bacteria, suggesting raw-meat or uncooked-food contamination, was in half of the bags, and E. coli was found in 12 percent of the bags" tested in a recent study. While washing bags reduced levels to practically nothing, the study also found that people rarely, if ever, are actually washing them. So for those who waited in line for the "I'm Not A Plastic Bag" at Whole Foods... that's like three full years of bacteria by now!

So, one more thing to toss in the laundry (just make sure you buy ones that are washable: polypropolene, cloth or canvas).

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Carlson in News on June 27, 2010 2:15 PM

Comments [rss]

schizofriendly

If people were fully aware of the virus-bacteria-microbe respiration shower they are coated with after a ride on the subway—without even touching a surface—many would leave NYC.

commisioner gordon

You do realize this study was funded by a plastic bag manufacturers interest group.

ozik

Yes. Thank you.

CR

Of course you should wash them, but please show me one actual person who's gotten sick due to a reusable bag. People use dirty ass stuff all the time to store food and everyone's fine. All these stupid stories are just ads for some company to sell you something else.

savedbyzero

What Jazlow said.

Let's see a show of hands: how many of you got swine flu when the media was bleating about that ?

Have a germ or two once in a while...it'll do you good.

9illy

I actually did get the swine flu last November. It was probably the most sick I've ever been in my entire life— a good 3 weeks of misery and chest congestion. Right when I first got sick, when I still thought it was just a nasty hangover, I took a nice long subway ride all the way from teh Brooklyn to mid-town and back exposing all sorts of people to my awful awful H1N1. It's weird because I'm totally not a germaphobe- been mucking about in dirt and grime my whole life and have a pretty robust immune system as a result. I very rarely get sick. Couldn't fend off the H1N1 I guess. Not gonna stop me from avoiding plastic bags though. Probably not going to convince me to wash my bags any more often either...

jazlow

This just in... bacteria won't kill you!

I have been using reusable bags since about '95. Never get sick.

Politburo

And a corollary to that is that bacteria is everywhere.

Squard

Doesn't matter. NYers are the most germ-phobic people EVER. They'll read something like this, throw out their reusable bags & still grab doorhandles with a tissue without using any rational thought.