Researchers and doctors here have warned that placing hot food in plastic bags or wrappers is detrimental to human health and called on the public to replace plastic bags with bags made of cotton, burlap or other safe material. Dr. Muhammad Mustafa, an internal medicine consultant, has warned against using plastic or nylon bags to store food or placing food inside them because they are harmful to health. “Consumers and merchants use plastic bags a lot because they are inexpensive, but what they do not know is that these bags contain poisonous substances,” he said. Chemical substances Nylon bags contain non-biodegradable chemical substances that are dangerous to our health, Dr. Abdul Rahman Kamas, an environmental expert, said. “When used in food packaging, they increase bacteria and germs in food and might cause stomach disorders and food poisoning,” he said. These bags, which can be seen everywhere around us, can also block fish gills and block sunlight from reaching coral reefs, Dr. Kamas added. Dr. Majda Abu Ras, deputy executive director of the Saudi Environmental Society, said it will launch a Kingdom-wide cleaning campaign, “I Love Earth.” “The campaign aims to protect our environment against pollution and raise public awareness with respect to using an alternative to nylon bags, which can take hundreds of years before they become biodegradable,” Dr. Abu Ras said. “We will hand out safe, reusable bags and encourage people to use them.” There are two types of plastic bags, those that are biodegradable in a relatively short time and those that take far longer, Dr. Abu Ras explained. The latter is dangerous to health when mixed with hot food and “plastic factories should choose biodegradable substances,” she added. Dr. Ghazi Ibrahim, an internal medicine specialist, said many patients suffer from stomach ache that may be caused by the way hot food was wrapped in plastic bags. Metal containers Dr. Faizah Al-Ghamdi said metal containers should be used because they are manufactured to store food safely, especially in Jeddah's scorching heat. Some citizens blamed authorities for not raising public awareness about the harmful effects of using plastic bags and called on officials to make stores and restaurants use proper containers to store food. Ali Hussain, a Saudi citizen, said: “The Ministry of Commerce is not doing its job properly. Something should be done about this problem.” Ismail Al-Milees, another Saudi citizen, said: “There are alternatives to plastic bags. The consumers should take part of the blame because they can make their own gunny bag or burlap bag, which is safer than plastic.” Muhanad Al-Ghamdi said some candy is wrapped in plastic and when kids try to unwrap it, some pieces of plastic get stuck on it so the kids eat the candy with plastic on it, which is dangerous to health and might make them contract a chronic disease.”Food poisoning Muhammad Abdullah, a Saudi citizen, told his story to Okaz/Saudi Gazette. “I brought some lunch for me and my family from a famous restaurant in Jeddah and it took me 45 minutes to get home. During all this time the lunch was inside plastic bags. When we had lunch, we started to feel pain and we vomited the lunch. We went to the hospital and were told that the food we ate was subjected to bacteria from plastic bags. We stayed eight hours in the hospital.” __
