Lead Found in Reusable Shopping Bags

Lead Found in Reusable Shopping Bags

Boy, if anything in this world were safe for us to repeatedly use, you would think it’d be reusable shopping bags. We’ve been converting to them, slowly but surely, and ditching the plastic that ends up serving as the surface area for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or the chokehold for a massive dying whale as we strive to live a little bit greener, a little bit more consciously, with this simple act. We all think that we’re doing a great thing by using reusable bags—indeed, it is a good thing—but it turns out that sometimes it’s just about as bad as plastic bags.

A recent study has confirmed that many of these reusable bags are chock full of lead! Not only is this lead leeching into the environment when the bags are discarded—which wholly defeats the purpose of using such eco-friendly bags in the first placed—it’s also seeping into our food as we carry it home.

Can we not get SOMETHING without lead in this country? Is it too much to ask for some damn safety standards to be put into place to protect us from crap like lead? Are we asking too much when we demand lipstick, reusable bags, or baby supplies without freaking LEAD in them?

I think not. In fact, I think we aren’t asking enough of our country and its addiction to bright and shiny happy lead; if we were, we would have already nipped this problem in the bud. The fact that this has been discovered and is still allowed to occur just points out the fact that our government could care less about what’s going on or into our bodies, and that since we’re not pressuring them enough to make it different, they’re going to keep allowing our systematic body poisoning.

Hey, it keeps the medical industry alive and well, right! And since we didn’t get the public option many of us were hoping for, we have to keep that capitalist sick system going.

Folks, it’s time we stood up and demanded a government that puts our best interests at heart—and this includes not letting us get poisoned on a regular basis from the crap we buy, the crap they encourage us to buy to “keep the economy going.” I’m the first person who will advocate buying less all around, but even what little we have to buy should be safe for us to use.