Reusable bags can kill, says Seymour
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 colleagues had raised concerns with him about the bags, and his father, a government health inspector, also raised concerns about them years ago.
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 level of contamination and cases of illness. Caring for reusable bags was just another precaution that consumers would need to take until contamination in chicken products was reduced.
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.
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.
A Ministry for the Environment spokesman said hygiene risks had been referred to in submissions, and were being considered. The arrival of Captain James Cook in New Zealand is celebrated by some as a discovery, but a new exhibition in Gisborne challenges that perception.
He Tirohanga ki Tai: Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery will address the ‘‘historical inaccuracies of the European ‘discovery’’’ of New Zealand and the island nations of Te Moananuia-Kiwa, or the Pacific.
Curator Reuben Friend said its creators were interested in the historical celebration of Captain Cook’s arrival to New Zealand in 1769. From a Ma¯ ori perspective, the idea of discovering New Zealand was inaccurate, as Ma¯ori were already living here, he said.
Its title, He Tirohanga ki Tai, means ‘‘a view from the shore’’, being the perspective of Ma¯ori looking out and seeing Cook’s ship arriving.
The exhibition includes art, lectures, workshops and performances by artists including Dr Huhana Smith, Israel Tangaroa Birch, Robyn Kahukiwa and Charlotte Graham.
Cook’s ‘‘controversial’’ nature was at the heart of the exhibition, alongside the idea of discovery, which ‘‘led Cook and the monarchy at that time to be able to declare any inhabited land as [belonging to no-one] if those people weren’t God-fearing, civilised, Christian people,’’ Friend said.
‘‘To celebrate the discovery of New Zealand is continuing that old way of thinking – racist ideas around Ma¯ ori not being civilised or equally as human or valued as Westerners. We wanted to provide a place for people to have that conversation.’’
Friend will be displaying works in the exhibition under his artist name, Tane Ma¯ , including digital works where he has pixelated Cook.
He Tirohanga ki Tai: Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery opens on December 7 at Taira¯ whiti Museum.