Shoppers shrug off fears about toxic reusable
Mr. Redcay, not shown, loads reusable grocery bags into her vehicle after shopping at a store in Clarence, N.Y., Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York is seeking a federal investigation following a newspaper report of lead content in some reusable grocery bags.
So you care about the environment, and you take a reusable shopping bag with you to the grocery store to avoid polluting the planet with countless plastic sacks. Now you find out your bag is made with potentially harmful lead. What's an environmentalist to do?
If you're like Elnora Cooper, nothing, will happen.
"I'm not eating the bag ... and I'm not going to get rid of it," Cooper, 68, said with a chuckle after walking out of a Wegmans Food Markets store in Rochester this week with a reusable bag under her arm.
The latest in a long line of ominous warnings about potentially dangerous products concerns synthetic but reusable bags that may contain traces of lead. The stir in supermarkets and Congress is less about whether the toxin might rub off on food and more about whether they could accumulate in landfills and create an environmental hazard.
But since the whole point of the bags is that they're to be kept, not tossed out, and because the concentration of lead in them is so low, some shoppers are convinced there's little risk of an imminent toxic catastrophe.
"I switched to reusable bags six or seven years ago to keep plastic out of landfills," said Cooper, a retired nurse. "I'll keep using the one with the lead, truthfully, before I start using plastic again."
The Rochester-based Wegmans chain of 77 stores in several Eastern states halted sales of two styles of reusable bags in September after tests by a local environmental group found they contained potentially unsafe levels of lead. Wegmans said there's no evidence the 750,000 bags it sold pose a health threat.
"The eventual disposal of the bags is the only issue, from an environmental perspective," said spokeswoman Jo Natale, urging customers to return the bags for replacement when they're no longer useful.
The company, which has sold an estimated 4.5 million reusable bags at its stores in five states, has not decided yet how it will dispose of returned bags.
Lead can cause learning disabilities in children and fertility problems in adults if ingested.
A recent investigation by The Tampa Tribune found excessive amounts of lead in reusable bags bought at Winn-Dixie and other major retailers. The lead appears to be in a form that's not easily extracted or "leached" out.
But over time in a landfill, laboratory experts told the newspaper, the bags break down and paint can flake off. Lead was used in the paint to add color, opaqueness and durability; it has been banned in wall paint in the U.S. since the late 1970s.
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, on Sunday called on the Food and Drug Administration to open an investigation into the bags.
"When our families go to the grocery store looking for safe and healthy foods to feed their kids, the last thing they should have to worry about are toxic bags," he said.
The next day, Long Island chain King Kullen and Jacksonville, Fla.-based Winn-Dixie said they were pulling some brands of reusable bags. Winn-Dixie and Tampa-based Publix are asking suppliers to find ways to make reusable grocery bags with less lead.
Reusable bags, mostly made in China, account for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the U.S. market of grocery bags. Wegmans' Chinese-made "green pea" and "holiday 2009" bags had lead levels seven to eight times higher than allowed under New York state packaging regulations.
But after they were removed, tests for "leachable lead levels" came back at less than 0.1 parts per million, said Kathleen O'Donnell, Wegmans' chief food scientist.
"That level is classified as a non-hazardous waste and could go into any landfill," she said.
Dr. John Rosen, a lead poisoning specialist at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City, said any source of lead exposure, no matter how small, should be eliminated if possible.
"I haven't seen any numbers on the lead concentration in shopping bags, but for my own grandchildren's safety, I'd say to my daughters, 'Don't use them,'" Rosen said.
The bags join other pilloried consumer goods that have raised eyebrows recently, such as children's jewelry and Shrek-themed novelty glasses that contained cadmium.
To Beth Lavigne, the bag brouhaha sounds more like "a blip."
"If there's a problem, they'll get it fixed. ... It won't be an issue anymore," said Lavigne, 61, a college administrator who owns a dozen reusable bags. "Reusable are a good idea. But who knows what's in the plastic bags?"
Mary Siegrist, an 81-year-old former teacher, said as she queued up at a Wegmans deli counter that she was all for studying the issue.
"In other countries, things have to be proven to be safe before being put into circulation," she said. "Here, we put it into circulation and then find out later it's unsafe."
Anyone concerned about the possibility of lead in their shopping bags can rest easy if they use cotton canvas bags rather than the more colorful synthetic type, said Russ Haven of the New York Public Interest Research Group in Albany.
"At this point," he said, "the canvas bags have a clean bill of health."
Or as I say why not stick to the plan old plastic bags, and forget about purchasing those bags with the pictures, I mean who needs a bag to carry around to every store, let the store supply the bags. After all you are paying the price for the high priced groceries that go in them.
Also who said the price of food has not gone up, well Mr. and Mrs. American, yes the food has gone up.
Of course the President does not think the cost of living has not gone up, what world is he been living in. Then again, he has not had to pay for food like the rest of us here in America.
Lead is a killer, well in this world, everything will kill you, from coffee to cigarettes, beer to bologna, and cheese to crabs. Everything will kill you, so why not get in line and see who dies first.
Some people have an attitude like the one who dies with the most toys wins, not me, I want to live a long time just so that I can meet more and more people and make more friends, those that race cars and those that work on them plus just plain fans of all sports.
Sure LEAD may kill you, but so can the use of my cell phone giving me brain cancer, or what about that computer screen and all the rays it gives forth. Poison right, will I stop using them, NO, because they have become part of my life here in America.
Next time you hear something is going to kill you, I want you to sit back and really think, should I or shouldn’t I eat or drink this because it could kill me.
All I have to say is everyone has a appointed time to die, and GOD knows when that time is, he may not want you to smoke and die of cancer, then again he does not want you to sit and eat and eat like a pig and die that way.
Whatever happens, just smile, and know that you are in good hands.
Thanks,
Tino Patti
A Freelance Photographer/Video Journalist
With a World Wide racing BLOG Following!
Remember to share some food with someone less fortunate than you are, in this time of THANKSGIVING.
Leave some comments, if you can…….cya…..
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