I noticed some mold on one of my reusable bags after it got wet. It went into the wash. No big deal. Blatantly obvious, well duh. Let's see what the nanny state comes up for us this time.

5 cents a bag? I'm paying for as many grocery bags as I require for food safety. Plastic bags are not banned, but we middle classes are supposed to feel guilty using them. If plastic bags are so bad, then ban them outright or charge a significant amount for them, such as $1.00 per bag to discourage use. Ontario will collect the tax on $40,000,000. worth of 5 cent bags. This isn't about being green, this is about collecting the tax on bags. Talk about nickle and diming!

The Greens are trying to kill us, I swear!

When pure food and clean water measures were introduced the paramount concern was to control infectious disease. That has been forgotten in the blizzard of political correct righteousness, along with simple hygiene. People are getting dirtier. The nose notices.

Possibly the schools, which did attempt to teach kids how to keep clean, are now too busy with social issues; or, with equal probability, the kids don't believe anything that they are told in school.

gobidesert, washing a mouldy bag will not sterilize and kill the mould - please use plastic bags once only for the trip home from the grocery story for food safety.

"....the kids don't believe anything that they are told in school."

Getting there!

I never have, and I never will buy those "green" bags, for the very reason mentioned above.

I laugh with scorn at the shocked silence from the line behind that greets me whenever I answer the cashier's question of "how many bags?" with "whatever it takes, just charge me at the end". I never have to buy small garbage bags, and they are great for all kinds of things.

Maybe if society didn't try to be too sterile, we could actually build up natural immunity to some of this junk.

My wife and I are being proactive by allowing our daughter to play in the back yard after the dog does its duties :)

Hmmm... just saying.

**The study was funded by the Environment and Plastics Industry Council (EPIC), an industry initiative to promote responsible use and recovery of plastic resources. EPIC is a committee of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association.**

In order to kill the offending microbes the re-usables have to be washed with bleach. I use the plastic grocery bags for garbage instead of buying garbage bags. Which is greener?

But!...But!...But!...We're saving the whales, preventing the arctic icecap from melting and preventing the sky from falling by using reusable bags!

Pretty good deal for the grocery stores too. Instead of them spending a fraction of a penny per customer for plastic grocery bags, they actually get the customer to pay a buck or so each for those stupid things, sold with the slick eco-feel-good marketing ploy. A nice final boost to the profit-per-customer transaction.

Grow your own food and you won't have to worry about either stupid bag.

Saves gas on having to mow the damn lawn too.

There was a flurry of reusable bag enthusiasm in my community that was fueled by local concerned citizens and sympathetic businesses. The enthusiasm seems to have waned. I suspect that reusable bags resulted more items leaving the stores without having been scanned.

Lou

Bon appetit !

I have an idea. Why doesn’t someone invent a biodegradable material that is renewable and easily fabricated into bags? Perhaps it could be processed from some form of cellulous. They could be kinda tan in color … and we could call them … wait for it … PAPER BAGS. Just sayin.

"...is an ideal incubator for bacteria."

Maybe it's the really cool probiotic stuff that we're paying $10/lb for in yogurt. [snort] Hey, does anyone else remember the old days when yogurt commercials were about how good the yogurt tasted instead of how good it would make you poop?

Oh, man, I just dated myself again.

It is all about "greening" the economy, never once have the environauts ever said it would be healthier, cheaper, cleaner or safer.

What the hell you doing buying meat anyways? It is killing the planet, those animals we (in order to be man made) created in a JPL Laboratory because cows and pigs never farted into the atmosphere before oil and coal was discovered.

Unless you are talking about CO2, then they can guarantee that nothing bad will happen climate wise ( of course climate being the sum of weather there are no guarantees, but sea level rise will not kill kazillions of people who cannot outrun 1.5 mm of sea level rise per year, "hey look I put down a row of bricks good for about 100 years now") if we pay billions more in energy taxes they will make it safer for you and will keep the sooty bogeyman of run-away warming from hiding under your bed. Good thing to because you will be spending much more time there staving off bacterial and fungal infections from your shopping trips....

Remember folks it's Tranna that's bringing in these wacky laws, the rest of the free world needn't worry. The plastic grocery bags in my house gets reused each time I scoop out the litter box.

I like to carry the plastic bags in the green bags. It confuses the thought police.

I pay the five cents. I'll be damned if I'm going to haul those frickin' greenie bags around like some kind of Toronto dwelling dork. Recent observations at the store reveal there are a lot more people like me than greenie dorks.

It isn't like I wasn't paying for the bags before, right? Now they tell you the price instead of hiding it as half a point on the price of butter. Predictably, all they've done is added a charge for bags instead of adjusting their markup.

End result is the usual one-time price gouge masquerading as a save-the-planet initiative. The true purpose of cooperating with greenies is revealed yet again.

What I object the most to is the posturing of grocery stores as being environmental when we know it is all about saving the costs of the bag that they used to give you for free and now charge for. It is just like the hotels who pose as environmentalists so they can save the cost of cleaning towels. It should be about customer service first and foremost,

Apparently, out of the 5 cents we are charged per bag in Sudbury 1 cent goes to the World Wildlife Fund (I would rather it went to the World Wrestling Federation).

My solution was to buy a roll of white garbage bags and use them instead The cost is cheaper and is more people friendly.

I already avoid stores that don't give bags with your purchase.

But when I really have no choice, I fill up the vegetable bags they offer. Not useful for large items, but I adjust my shopping accordingly. I REFUSE to pay for a bag and don't trust the reusable bags for the very reasons stated, and a portion of the proceeds go to the WWF - I will decide who I want to be charitable to outside of the hoards of taxes I already pay, thank you. And I am always very vocal at the cash register.

Apparently I am not alone as a young lady who works at an Independent Grocer says the vegetable bag consumption has increased dramatically since they started charging for bags.

And to add further insult, you cannot get a box for your purchases either. And then you drive behind the store to see the stacks of cardboard for recycling. What a country!

Gaia will be vewy, vewy angwy.

Brian Mallard said something about brown paper bags being biodegradable.

Brian, it may interest you to know that archaeologists in training sometimes dig up garbage dumps. I recall one dig in Ontario someplace. The team dated the level they were at by reading the newspapers. Newspapers remained completely legible back into the 1930's, which was when the dump was started. They also found ten year old lettuces that looked edible.

Brown paper degrades exactly the same way as plastic does in a landfill. It doesn't. Landfills are a sealed oxygen-free environment. Biological activity stops pretty much completely. Biodegradeability is just another greenie fantasy.

Which tells you exactly how f-ing pointless this bag initiative really is.

When I visited Scotland in 1967, they all carried their own shopping bags (as they had for goodness knows how many decades). Anybody remember reading about deaths (or sickness)throughout the U.K. by grocery bags? Didn't think so.

A reusable bag full of moisture and food particles?
Have they never seen the inside of a kid's backpack?

THERE ARE MILLIONS OF KIDS CARRYING HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS AND TOXIC PETRI DISHES AROUND!!!!

Please...if there is anything dangerous in a reusable grocery bag it is because it was innoculated from sitting next to a backpack.

Ever lived with a greeny socialist? They don't wash dishes either (or do anything else constructive for that matter). They love the smell of molding 2 week-old squash paste mixed with spaghetti sauce festering on the dishes laying about the house. It's good for the environment.

Ok, quick show of hands:

Who puts anything in a multiple use bag that's not already packaged or it's own bag? (Or is something like a banana or garlic where you throw away the peel.)

Bueller? Anyone?

Talk about a tempest in a tea pot. The world is full of germs, don't be stupid, but don't get excited either.

I hate those gosh-darned things and was surprised and annoyed to discover the newly-imposed green Gorean nonsense, for which I noticed no warning.

I did a post slamming those envirofascists for this anti-customer nonsense.

http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2009/05/reusable-grocery-bags-are-dangerous.html

It's like when the cable companies tried the whole "negative billing" nonsense scheme. We remember how that worked out.

Grocery clerks have found rotting meat from the previous shopping trip as well as mice that get in because the bags are left in the trunk between visits. Yuck.

Fred2:

Blood from meats leaks out of poor packaging, which evidently is still being used. The blood contains things like e-coli and salmonella, which contaminates the reusable bags.

via cross-contamination, you see, other foods' packaging becomes contaminated and can actually be transferred to the food inside when handling and removing the packaging and the food. Ditto when handling and peeling bananas and such. Too many people just don't have such things in mind at all, and this is why the risk is unacceptable.

"The world is full of germs". So? The world is full of terrorists, too, so what are you saying, that we shouldn't worry about them and not bother to take measures to prevent deaths due to terrorist activity?

Don't be so cavalier. I used to be, and, believe me, although it was 20 years ago, I'm still sorry, what with the nightmarish memory of the whole thing, for what I negligently put myself through with e-coli contraction, which, I promise you, will have you wishing for something, anything, other than having a fire burning in your belly and worrying about dying of exsanguination via non-stop bloody leakage.

Damn... just recalling it actually made me feel it again, a little... owwww! Quick, nurse; more Demerol! NOW! It's worn off already!

Too bad they only give you the Demerol shot every 4 hours, even though it wears off after 2, as in my case.

It's your risk. If you enjoy suffering in torturous agony, that's your business, I guess... Me, I'd have preferred deep sedation 'til the infection was cleared.

Oh, and they won't feed you or even let you drink water for a couple of days at least, either. Lots of fun, eh?

I never thought I'd defend plastic grocery bags ( I hate them so), but from an energy consuption perspective their efficient mass manufacture and utilitarian disposability IS more energy efficient than the synthetic cloth bags. Also the extra energy expended in product life span to sanitize reusable bags also creates affluent wash water which puts more toxins into the environment.

Perhaps some day we will realize that disposable plastic should not be recycled (really energy wasting) or land filled (really stupid) but used as fuel in high efficiency furnaces that in turn run steam turbines to feed their energy back onto the electric grid.

But there's no fluffy bunny appeal in clean energy solutions fueled with trash.

Ewww, that's way too much information CS, but point well taken. However I agree with Fred2 in that the world is full of germs and that's not a bad thing. Germs are our friends, indirectly.

Phantom. What process creates methane that landfills??

Some commenters have said "Germs aren't that bad for you". In fact, I'd say the US/Canadian hysteria with sanitation makes us more susceptible to disease. If you travel to the Philippines, for example, without a steady supply of industrial strength Immodium, you're apt to be chained to a bathroom for three or four days if you try to eat many of the local foods. Meanwhile, the locals scarf it down like candy; their immune systems are strong enough to deal with the bugs - ours are pasty-faced pushovers by comparison.

I'm not saying we should live like pigs, but a little dirt might not be so bad for us.

Oh, and voltaire's bastard: "affluent waste water"? Damn straight - I don't want any of that no-good poor waste water in my town.

Reuseable "eco friendly" bags are an assinine idea and I have absolutely no intention of using them. What I find very strange is stores that prohibit people from bringing backpacks into stores are encouraging people to use the re-usable bags. I've used my backpack to carry stuff in for the past 40 years as I hate not having my hands free when I'm walking.

Disposable plastic bags are incredibly usefull: I use them for garbage bags, to keep things separate in my pack and for packing material. I had a huge pile of plastic bags in my Vancouver apartment which turned out to be excellent packing material for fragile items when I moved and I ran out of plastic bags at the end of the move. When I'm finished with the bags the clean ones get recycled (here in BC London Drugs and Walmart will accept plastic bags).

I have some ancient bags which I've used for 30+ years but the new biodegradeable ones are very annoying as they start to fragment in 10 years or so. Instead of being able to use them for storeage I have to clean up messes and buy non-biodegradeable bags for long term storeage.

Paper bags are only usefull to put cat toys in and watch the cat attempt to get them out of the bag or tear through the bag to get at the toy. Paper bags fall apart in the rain and tear with minimal loads. Paper bags are ancient inferior technology which has no place in a modern society.

Step 1: Promulgate the myth and virtue of the green bag.
Step 2: Force retailers to charge for using plastic bags.
Step 3: Declare green bags to be handheld bacterial nightmares out of which diseases shall crawl to consume your little children and babies.
Step 4: Put pressure on government and retailers that all money collected through the sale of plastic bags be given directly to green-hearted enviro-bastards. (Green-hearted meaning hungry for money.)

KevinB: "Oh, and voltaire's bastard: "affluent waste water"? Damn straight - I don't want any of that no-good poor waste water in my town"

LOL. My fox paw.

Wash water can only be effluent.

Unless, of course, it comes from an upscale green household on a cap and trade plan who have payed a tax to pollute. Then it IS "affluent" wash water.

A microbiological study — a first in North America — of the popular, eco-friendly bags has uncovered some unsettling facts.

So popular now means forced on us by the Fake Canadian Stupor Store. Where I live the went bagless a year ago. The pols are trying to pass legislation to mandate the use of these Bio-hazard Bags and ban single use plastic bags.

The Fake Canadian Stupor Store has be touting it's Bio-Hazard Bags as the "Greenest Shopping Bags made" for a couple-three years now. I went to customer service and asked, "If your black reusable shopping bags are so "green" why are they made in China from plastic bottles that are recycled here in Canada?" "Doncha' know that China is the most polluting country on the planet, opening 10 new 1950s technology coal-fired power plants/wk, and what about the eco-cost in diesel fuel it takes to ship those bottles all the way to China and back?"

crickets chirping.....

To the phatom: waht you are referreing to is the efficacy of the land fill not the biodegradeability of the material (paper bags). Please refer to the following link http://www.saskwastereduction.ca/resources/Composting/paper-compost.html. There is a discussion as to how to compost paper and cardboard efficiently. Perhaps it should be sent to the landfill operator ;-).

Oops should be Phantom (damn fat sleepy fingers)

I'm going to buy 5 times more bags than I need to carry my groceries, souvenirs of my shopping trip. No Frills has really nice sturdy bags, great for packing lunches and taking out the trash. 5c isn't that much for those ones. Totally worth it. I never buy garbage bags. Could do something about the yellow.

Hey there Panic-y Petes...

Just wash your bag every once in a while. About as often as you guys wash your underwear should be enough. (Though you might want to try washing your gitch more often)

Doesn't anyone find it funny that this study was funded by the people most likely to be hit by a reduced use of plastic?

I have a simple approach for any supermarket charging for bags. I bring my own supply - from a competitor! So if you see someone walking out of Loblaws with a load of Metro bags, or vice versa, it might just be me.

I wonder what the stores will think of that!

There's a really simple way of dealing with any market that wants to charge you for plastic bags.

Dont shop there.

There are loads of stores that still have the decency to not charge for bags, spend your money at those stores. Dont validate the presence of a store that charges you for bags by giving them any of your money.

Rob C., methane is produced in landfills by rotting, obviously. It does rot... eventually. Its just astoundingly, amazingly slow in the kind of sealed, clay bottomed landfill used today due to... wait for it... greenie inspired regulations too keep all the nassssty poo out of the water table. Which makes the landfill a pretty much sealed environment where newsprint can last 100 years.

Brian, landfills are governed by regulations at the federal, provincial and local level. They are all the same, so switching to rippy, non-waterproof annoying brown paper bags nets us zero good.

Hamilton is toying with a large composting operation which to date is costing big bucks, not lowering disposal costs. They had the same problem back in the day with SWARU, a multi-megabuck white elephant from the 1960's. The problem with composting is the same as the problem with all these recycling efforts: sorting. You have to sort the garbage, and that's super-duper expensive because humans have to do it.

There's some pretty keen plasma lance technology that converts the garbage to hydrocarbon gas and glassy slag with 2000 degree temperatures, but that has a long way to go before they get it working on an industrial scale.

Gimme a good old ozone fairy tale any time.

Remember ozone? Or rather the Hole in the ozone in the atmosphere. Musta got over the flu or whatever its problem was. Haven't heard a damn thing about it... in fifteen years.

My how green fashions change. Yeah right...

The reusable bags were never meant to help us, they were meant to help Gaia. The faster the mold and bacteria kill us off, the better off Mama Gaia will be. C'mon! Get with the program already.