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We recently received word from an FPI member that a Fox News
reporter was asking about movements in Canada and elsewhere
to encourage people to bring their own coffee mugs into shops in
place of single-use cups. Similar demands are being made for
people to bring their own bags into grocery stores to replace
those hated plastic and paper bags.
All we can say is, “Samuel J. Crumbine is rolling over in his
grave.”
“Who?” you ask.
Dr. Crumbine, the Kansas public health officer who watched one
of his tuberculosis patients drink out of a common
cup while riding a train across the Plains 100 years
ago. Behind the tubercular man was an eight-yearold
who eagerly drank from the same cup. The
good doctor was so upset by what he saw that he
began what turned into a nationwide campaign to
eliminate the public use of common eating and drinking
items.
Today there is a coveted national award named after
Dr. Crumbine to honor local public health departments
that do an outstanding job implementing
programs that promote sanitation and public health
in the foodservice venues in their communities. The
Crumbine Award, which is administered by the Foodservice Packaging
Institute, is a prize that is hard to win…and one that merits
the winner occasionally getting a commendation letter from the
President of the United States!
So, what does the Crumbine Award have to do with people bringing
their dirty cups and bags back into food establishments?
Well, for one thing, local public health sanitarians are going to
have their work cut out for them if the “Bring your own cup/bag”
movement really catches on.
Think about it. As this is being written, world public health authorities
are scrambling to catch up with an outbreak of Swine
Flu in seven countries and a half-dozen states.
And in those countries and states people are being told to bring
their coffee mugs from home, and the front seat (or floor) of their
cars, into a very well known coffee chain’s theoretically sanitary
stores. Now really…how dumb is that? Even if we didn’t have a
Swine Flu outbreak, bringing used mugs into a sanitary foodservice
establishment is not very smart.
“But, my mug is clean,” some will say.
Wanna bet?
Over the years the Institute has conducted numerous on-site
swab studies of reusables and single-use products used in
foodservice establishments. The most recent study was conducted
with assistance from the Clark County, Nev. (Las Vegas)
public health department inspectors. The result of the Vegas
study, and all of the others, are always the same: reusable
permanent ware articles always have higher microbial counts
than their single-use counterparts.
Why? Because even in commercial foodservice venues there
are times when dishwashing and dishwashers don’t get service
ware and glasses clean enough. And if that’s what happens
where people are professionally trained…and inspected…imagine
what happens in private homes (and in the front seat
of cars) where foodservice-grade sanitary practices
are, shall we say…absent.
And as for reusable bags…don’t get us started.
Cities run by people with Harvard and Berkeley educations
are requiring shoppers to bring reusable bags
into grocery stores. How crazy is that?These are
bags that have been stored in the floor of people’s
pantries next to the spilled bits of Friskies and Kibble,
or on shelves in their garages, or worse yet, in the
trunks of their cars. People don’t wash those things.
They just store them until the next time they go to the store.
In the name of “green” these items will be brought into stores
where open bins of produce and poultry are on display. People
will put their hands into these bags…and then pick up the tomatoes
and lettuce for inspection. Hope you’re not behind them at
the bin.
Food for Thought: at the next outbreak of Salmonella, will public
health inspectors be able to trace the outbreak if there’s cross
contamination from a dirty reusable bag? Just wondering.
The solution to this wave of irrational marketing, and ill thought
out public policy, of course, is for public health departments and
their inspectors to begin random swab testing of reusable mugs
as they are being brought into coffee shops, and for reusable
bags being brought into grocery stores.
Our prediction is if that happens…and we certainly hope it
does…the “Bring it Back into the Store” movement will be short
lived. Dr. Crumbine will be delighted.
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