Germs in your shopping bags? Gross! Right…?
Recently, many media outlets carried stories about a new study finding bacteria in many reusable grocery bags. For example, WGO-TV in San Francisco aired this piece, “Study says reusable shopping bags harbor E. coli”:
But wait, there’s a problem. Viewers find out towards the end of the story that the study was sponsored by the American Chemistry Council, an industry group that represents plastic bag makers. Those same bag makers are fighting efforts to enact a law in California that would ban disposable shopping bags – and thus require consumers to use reusable bags.
Journalist Amy Westervelt took the study – and the media – to task in an article calling the scare a “bullsh** ad campaign.” See her story here.