Are reusable bags hidden killers?
New Zealanders are embracing the reusable bag ahead of a plastic bag ban but they could be carrying something else around – bacteria.
ACT leader David Seymour says 20 people could die each year using reusable bags.
‘‘It’s coming up to summer and people will be in a hot car with their chicken in a canvas bag . . . and suddenly, you’ve got a real serious case for poor food hygiene.’’
Food safety expert Steve Flint said it was a valid concern. Packaging for meat was not always sealed properly and the juices could leak into bags, he said.
‘‘There’s a clear passage of food-based pathogens to use the bag as a vehicle . . . it’s different to the plastic bags which can just be thrown away.’’
Flint said his colleagues had raised concerns with him about the bags, and his father, who was a government health inspector, had also raised concerns about them years prior, he said.
New Zealand has one of the world’s highest rates of campylobacteriosis, and almost all fresh chicken sold is contaminated with campylobacter.
Campylobacter expert Michael Baker said there was a strong health requirement to reduce that amount of contamination and cases of illness. Caring for reusable bags was just another precaution that consumers would need to take until contamination in the chicken products was reduced, Baker said.
Buying frozen or pre-cooked chicken was an easy solution.
In August, when the ban was announced, Kiwi Plastics owner Angelus Tay warned the alternatives were not hygienic.
People combining meat with other products in the same reusable bag were risking contamination, Tay said.
Seymour was ‘‘completely opposed’’ to the plastic bag ban, citing a US research paper from 2012 which showed a switch to reusable bags killed about five people a year in San Francisco.
San Francisco County was the first major US jurisdiction to restrict plastic bag use, and brought in a ban in 2007. The research found relative to other counties, their emergency hospital admissions increased by at least one fourth.
A Ministry for the Environment spokesman said hygiene risks had been referred to in submissions, and were being considered.