Friday, July 23, 2010

Shopping baskets ARE dirty

Do you remember when I blogged about shopping baskets earlier this year? Probably not, so let me repeat the main part briefly:
Shopping basket is another environmental choice by us, though now you might wonder why we don't use canvas bags like everybody else. News for you: they're just not as handy. When you walk to a store, you have basically two options: You can pick one huge family-sized shopping cart or you can choose one big dirty (they're always dirty!) plastic basket. Not very appealing. But ha! We have our own perfectly sized clean shopping basket with us. And you walk out with the very same basket. Very convenient.
Our friend Elina was the first one to comment on the statement about dirty shopping baskets. She said that she has not noticed such thing. I don't blame her, because many people don't pay attention to these things. They just take the first basket that looks good. But really, they're dirty. Just read on.

Couple weeks ago I read from a Finnish news paper that they have actually made a small study about how clean the shopping baskets really are. The study wasn't probably completely accurate or reliable, but the result was that almost all the shopping basket they tested were flooding with bacteria. And when it comes to food, the shopping baskets should be clean. Sometimes the food can even touch the basket! Just think about bread or lettuce in those open bags... Doesn't this completely put you off?

I took pictures of the magazine, and luckily the quality is quite high. It's easy to read if you just click to enlarge. The story is also online.





The point of this blog post was to prove that I'm not crazy and paranoid because I use my own shopping basket. It's actually quite smart. And I know that my shopping basket maybe dirty too... but at least it's our own dirt.

4 comments:

  1. I read that same article but I'm still not put off. :D I guess I just don't care about cleanliness so much. I thought earlier that you meant visible dirt, which I don't like, but I can handle bacteria as long as it's not from feces or something. And I even use the Lidl baskets still that were the dirtiest in the test. :D

    What was most interesting was that they actually clean the baskets after use, but they still stay dirty... there are bacteria everywhere, there's no getting away from that. But your basket is cuter and fashionable in any case.

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  2. Elina: I did meant visible dirt, but now I know that they can be dirty even when they look clean. Ewww.

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  3. Our local stores have wipes to kill the germs on the handle. They even clean them weekly, and more often during the flu season.

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  4. KnitWit: They're supposed to wash them in Finnish stores too, but somehow they seem to be still dirty. Wipes would be awesome :P

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