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Why does nobody talk about how reusable grocery bags might be worse than plastic if you don't wash them?
I was hauling my bin of bags from the car to my door last month and noticed this weird smell - looked it up and apparently they can breed bacteria like crazy. Between the energy to make them and the health risks if they're not cleaned, I'm starting to wonder if the plastic bag ban was actually a net win. Has anyone else looked into this or am I overthinking it?
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colegarcia8d ago
Woah, hold up, I gotta respectfully disagree with this take. I get where you're coming from with the bacteria thing, @lee.cora, but throwing them all out seems like a waste. The whole point of reusable bags is to cut down on single use plastic waste, and yeah, washing them is a pain but it's not that hard. I just toss mine in the laundry with my towels once a week and they're fine. The plastic bag ban isn't perfect, but the alternative was millions of bags clogging up landfills and oceans every day for centuries. So you're not wrong that it's a tradeoff, but I'd rather deal with a little extra laundry than go back to that mess.
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Yeah, "a little extra laundry" works if you actually do it... but how many people are really washing those bags every week? The whole point of reusable bags was supposed to be convenience, and now we're asking everyone to have a whole system just to keep from getting sick. I mean, who's actually tracking that?
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