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Its a cycle: In an attempt to "practice safe sacks," you stack your reusable grocery bags in a tidy pile each week, unfold them at the grocery store, only to empty and store them once more for the next trip to the market. But not washing the bags after each use could potentially make you and your family sick.
A study published in the International Association for Food Protection's Food Protection Trends revealed that most consumers never wash their reusable bags between uses, an omission that permits bacteria to grow. In fact, large numbers of bacteria were found in almost all reusable shopping bags tested, and coliform bacteria were found in half of them. Eight percent of bags contained E. coli.
The study tested 87 reusable bags obtained at random from grocery shoppers in California and Arizona during the early summer of 2010. Each bag was swabbed for bacteria and laboratory tested.
Because reusable bags are regularly exposed to remnants of meats and dairy products (which can leak out of plastic packaging), they are particularly susceptible to contamination. And without cold conditions, bacteria will quickly multiply.
But washing bags in hot soapy water after each use will remove 99 percent of the germs, the study says.
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