Home › Forums › Open Discussion › Norovirus spread by reusable bag…..
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May 11, 2012 at 9:35 pm #757869
DBPMemberodd-r, you’ve still got lots of options.
Dog poop: Ever notice the **free** biodegradable mutt-mitt dispensers at dog-walking parks? Grab a few extra next time you’re there.
Cat poop: I scoop mine into a tall kitchen trash bag placed inside an old detergent bucket. Send me $5 and a SASE and I’ll send you a diagram.
Vomit, etc.: Tall/small kitchen trash bags. Available cheap from retail stores everywhere.
Or . . . if you’re really desperate, you can just shop outside of Seattle.
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But darn it! I need my plastic bags and would never have tried to keep you all from using your filthy cloth bags.
Whoa, Nellie!! Now you’re getting personal. Do I blame you every time I see a plastic bag dancing down the street or read a news story about the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico? I do not.
Everyone knows change is hard, but why don’t you just give the new paradigm a spin for a year and then come back here and give us a report?
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And BTY, thank you for:
¶ Not using pesticides
¶ Not wasting gas
¶ Being green in every other way (It ain’t easy)
May 11, 2012 at 9:46 pm #757870
waterworldParticipantDid any of you read the actual report? The research doesn’t implicate reusable bags, in particular; it implicates anything that might be in the area surrounding a person who is ill with norovirus.
The index case was a girl from Oregon who became ill after the group arrived at a hotel in King County. She spent the evening puking in the bathroom of one of the chaperones. The chaperone had left some items in the bathroom, including a reusable polypro shopping bag containing packaged chips and cookies, and fresh grapes. The sick kid never touched the bag. The following morning, someone took the sick girl home to Oregon.
Meanwhile, the bag with packaged foods was taken to another hotel room and handled by various people who took items out of it and, I take it, ate them. Several of those kids became ill, and samples they provided showed they all had the same norovirus. (The researchers never got a sample from the first kid to compare these with.) The researchers also took swab samples from the reusable bag (although that was two weeks after the event) and found the same virus on two of ten of those samples. The researchers did not get to test any of the food or its packaging, and they cannot say whether exposure was from the food inside the bag or the bag itself.
The researchers’ conclusion is that norovirus from the index case was aerosolized in the bathroom and settled on the bag and possibly also on its contents. That’s right, vaporized vomit. Their point is not that reusable bags are vulnerable to harboring norovirus, or even that bags are unsafe unless washed between use; it’s that anything in the area around a person actively ill with norovirus may become contaminated and then transmit the virus. The only real news from the study is the possibility that the virus is susceptible to aerosolization; previously, the collective wisdom was that transmission was only by direct contact routes (i.e., puke/feces to hand to surface to someone else’s hand to that person’s mouth).
May 11, 2012 at 10:35 pm #757871
kootchmanMemberIt takes more energy to produce, transport, and dispose of paper than plastic, period. Yes Jan I am sure plastic is sanitary, when it comes out of the film blower it is molten plastic. Unless you have a viral agent that withstands 780 degrees F … The biggest industrial use of chlorine is to make paper. PCB’s? poly CHORINATEDbiphynals, that ozone depleting HCFC? hydrogentatedCHLORINATEDflurocarbons, PVC PolyvinylCHLORIDE…. you use a cap, a touch, a few billion people do that a day and by gosh you have a bunch… rivers of it. If you use thin film plastic you are making less of a carbon footprint and less landfill waste than paper … that’s just a fact. What to you think all those eco friendly bags are made of … llama wool gathered from the branches and brambles in the wilds of the Andes by Burkenstock shod lasses? It’s vinyl chloride resins and polyproplylene… mostly. You weigh it up with the thin film bags … which are not chlorinated plastics because the are not made to be abrasion resistant… goofy gospel, once it’s in the eco bible there is no other truth. Which is harder … convincing fundamentalists that evolution trumps creationism or eco fanatics that film plastic is the responsible eco choice.? I’d say the latter. Less energy to make, less energy to transport, reuseable and easy to recycle. For the vast unemployed,,, buy thin film bags by the industrial case size.. I’ll buy em.. heck put em in vending machines inside Safeway…. 5 for a nickel. JoB if you think you are being eco cool… you are consuming more resources and using more energy…. for the sake of the planet please stop. Chlorine is naturally found to be bound up with salts… it takes hugh amounts of energy to produce commercially… DOW Chemical was founded on extracting chlorine from Great Lakes salt domes.
Plants and animals are not likely to store chlorine. However, laboratory studies show that repeat exposure to chlorine in air can affect the immune system, the blood, the heart, and the respiratory system of animals.
Chlorine causes environmental harm at low levels. Chlorine is especially harmful to organisms living in water and in soil.
Read more: http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/cl.htm#ixzz1ubUZ3osF
You are a consumer…. you are a polluter. Check out that fiber content of everything you wear….. unbleached, pure, natural cotton or animal wool? No? You are a polluter.. Spandex, Goretex, nylon, rayon, … all that stuff…. stuff far worse for the environment than thin film plastic. Got more than two pairs of shoes? Polluter. Feckless, symbolism… nothing more. Recycled paper? First thing they do is bleach it to get rid of the ink.. and add sulphuric acid.
May 12, 2012 at 12:25 am #757872
JanSParticipantyou talk about less energy to make..what about disposal?
May 12, 2012 at 12:28 am #757873
JanSParticipantwaterworld…thanks….logical explanation…but OH NOES…let’s blame those dastardly bags…
May 12, 2012 at 2:07 am #757874
SmittyParticipant“Their point is not that reusable bags are vulnerable to harboring norovirus, “
Ummm….I would guess that they are more vulnerable than a bag that gets thrown in the trash and is never re-used, no?
May 12, 2012 at 3:37 am #757875
kootchmanMemberYep that too… Since without the presence of aerobic bacteria, neither of them break down …. but, .. paper is 9 times more bulky. Now, in the presence of the right anerobics.. gosh darn it.. those fragile, thin film hydrocarbon chains break down faster than paper..and in a slightly alkaline soil., poof! They disappear….. but why put them in landfills like we do paper? See, not only do they have reuse potential… but ya heat em’ back up to 780 degrees and they become molten again… and you can reform them and recycle them entirely .. over and over and over again. Paper has a maximum recycle of 3X before the cellulose fiber has not strength (that chlorine bleach and sulphuric acid thing) enough to be useful. You can use for fuel..shread it and use it as an insulator.
May 12, 2012 at 3:50 am #757876
kootchmanMemberDenver News
Reusable Grocery Bags Breed Bacteria
Tests Confirm Risk Of Illness
Marchetta took the lab results to Dr. Michelle Barron, the infectious disease expert at the University of Colorado Hospital.
“Wow. Wow. That is pretty impressive,” said Barron.
Barron examines lab results for a living.
“Oh my goodness! This is definitely the highest count,” Barron commented while looking at the bacteria count numbers.
She admitted she was shocked at what was found at the bottom of the bags.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/25181234/detail.html
Food Safety Report: Half of Reusable Grocery Bags are Contaminated with E. Coli and Other Bacteria, Posing
a Health Risk
University Study Finds 97 Percent Never Wash Their Reusable Shopping Bags
Tucson, AZ (PRWEB) June 24, 2010 — Reusable grocery bags can serve as a breeding ground for dangerous food-borne bacteria and pose a serious risk to public health, according to a joint food safe according to a joint food safety research report issued today by researchers at the University of Arizona (Tucson) and Loma Linda University (Loma Linda, California)
While JoB may be the only person who regularly wastes eneergy and pollutes with chlorine… most people don’t.. 97% don’t. And when they heft those bags up to be filled they are spreading the disease… they have in effect created and entirely new infectious disease vector. Thanks.
May 12, 2012 at 5:24 am #757877
miwsParticipantMay 12, 2012 at 6:17 am #757878
DianeParticipantI’m in agreement with kootchman and Smitty on this one
May 12, 2012 at 8:04 am #757879
HMC RichParticipantGina, you said …Did they just toss loose cookies into the bag?Now that is just plain dumb… May I add… Then they tossed their cookies…. ewwwwwwww.
May 12, 2012 at 4:38 pm #757880
redblackParticipantfrom the bottom of the santa cruz report, linked by kootch:
The American Chemistry Council provided funding to support this study.
LOL
May 12, 2012 at 5:32 pm #757881
SmittyParticipant“from the bottom of the santa cruz report, linked by kootch:
The American Chemistry Council provided funding to support this study.
LOL”
Well that settles it – University researchers manipulate evidence based on who is funding the study.
We all agree that from this point forward all research from any University that was funded by anything other than taxpayer dollars is a lie.
This will come in handy.
May 12, 2012 at 6:24 pm #757882
redblackParticipantnot a lie, per se. just a little persuasive argument from the industry that benefits from having their competition vilified.
same as it ever was. no need to get all knee-jerky.
May 12, 2012 at 6:24 pm #757883
JanSParticipantyou know…I remember years and years ago when a news report said that taking a shower was going to cause cancer because it emitted chlorine into the air in the shower mist…that was the day I figured we were doomed. None of us is perfect…if you want to use plastic bags, use them. But don’t hand me the line that you recycle everyone of them. We all know that many just get thrown into the garbage, and end up in the landfill. If you want to use reusable bags, use them. Germs? Everywhere…EVERYWHERE…one the cart at the store, on the outside of the milk carton, on the counter you just leaned on. And that person who just coughed or sneezed without covering it, or..into their hand…and then felt the produce?
Yeah…it’s a big world out there..and danger lurks everywhere..bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha…
May 12, 2012 at 7:01 pm #757884
GinaParticipantkbear and hmc–I would surely want a disposable bag anytime cookies were being tossed!
miws for the bada bing–
May 12, 2012 at 8:19 pm #757885
kootchmanMemberYea… and the lifesaving drugs so many of us take… who funded those studies? The ones they submit to the FDA? Why.. it would he the drug companies. Do you willfully look for one of the two that fits? http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/25181234/detail.html
This was a local news station, who took the samples to a local university. Even if I didn’t recycle a single one of them… the fact remains… they use less energy to produce, and are less over 800% less volume in the waste stream. Just facts. And they are more sanitary. Like I said… it’s easier to work on fundamentalist to move from creationism to evolution than a green zealot to read a countervailing argument of “green gospel”.
May 13, 2012 at 2:25 pm #757886
JoBParticipanthey guys..
has it occurred to you yet that when you reuse those plastic bags..
you risk the same kind of contamination that is attributed to the reusable bags that may or may not have been properly washed?
somehow.. i am betting you don’t wash them down with disinfectant before reusing them…
LOL. that’s what stopped me reusing ziplocks..
i didn’t mind washing them.. but plastic doesn’t dry easily on it’s own and putting them in the drier was not a good bet :(
honest.. the kids tried that one :)
moving on…
did it occur to you that any open container in that bathroom would have been as subject to the vaporized norvovirus containing vomit as the bags cited?
the problem here was a chaperone who didn’t have enough sense to remove the items from a bathroom a kids was getting sick in…
not with the bag.
oddreality..
yes, i do purchase paper towels.
As you have pointed out, there are times when a paper towel really is the superior product.
but old hippy and child of a child of the depression that i am
i mostly use and wash and reuse cloth napkins, kitchen towels, dog towels, bags, etc …
it worked for my momma and it has worked for me and i can’t see any reason to change things now
besides.. cloth towels substantial enough to stand up to washing don’t leave all that lint on the rugs when you clean up after pets that paper towels do …
if you want to use all of that disposable stuff
it’s fine with me..
there are times when i wish i lived in a disposable wash it down with a fire hose world…
but asking me to pick up the tab for disposing of your free disposable bags?
sorry.. i think i’ll pass.
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