LOS ANGELES — Way to go, all you planet-saving shoppers who've
made the switch to reusable bags! But consider: "Reusable"
doesn't mean "self-cleaning." Researchers at the University of
Arizona and Loma Linda University queried shoppers headed into
grocery stores in California and Arizona, asking them whether
they wash those reusable bags. The researchers were likely met
with a lot of blank looks. Most shoppers — 97 percent, in fact —
reported that they do not regularly, if ever, wash the bags.
Further, three-fourths acknowledged that they don't use separate
bags for meats and for vegetables, and about a third said they
used the bags for, well, all sorts of things (storing snacks,
toting books). You can see where this is going. The researchers
tested 84 of the bags for bacteria. They found whopping amounts
in all but one bag and coliform bacteria (suggesting raw- meat
or uncooked-food contamination) in half. And yes, the much-
feared E. coli was among them — in 12 percent of the bags. The
study is being offered