Compostable Garbage Bags
By Karina | October 8, 2007
Today this post will consist of two very closely related parts:
- My initial experiences with a new kind of garbage bags, and:
- A question and answer, involving bags with contents that will be disposed of.
Part the first:
I’ve noticed that I’m running a little low on plastic shopping bags from my stash under the sink! I haven’t been taking them since April when I really got down to brass tacks and committed to carrying my reusable shopping bags with me everywhere, and I’m pretty excited to be running so low. So when I was in Pittsburgh recently shopping for hard-to-find necessities at the incredibly awesome East End Food Co-op (I love you East End Food Co-op! I wish I was still a member, but I just live way too far away to shop there regularly!) I took a moment to scope out the garbage bag selection. And! they had biobags, those corn-based compostable bags we discussed in our Q&A on tossing trash when you’re bag free. I purchased the 3-gallon bags.
I wasn’t sure if the 3-gallons bags would fit in my garbage can, because 3-gallons, though it’s quite large, just seems small. And even though I use a very small garbage can, I was never sure if the bags would fit into the can properly. (I use one of these 6-quart garbage cans, but I could never remember how large they were - so I estimated-remembered the dimensions while I was in the store.) But I took the plunge! and I’m glad I did. When I threw away my last bag of garbage I stuck one in and it fits really nicely! perfectly, actually! And while I haven’t put a lot of juicy things in my garbage so far this week so far they look really great in terms of keeping the trash well contained. as an added bonus, they are supposed to serve well as food storage bags and heavens do I have a lot of food to store. Buying these bags covers several bases at once!
The biobag itself is kind of silky feeling and is a light green color. It doesn’t seem like it should be as strong as it appears to be so far, and I’ll keep y’all updated on it as I get more experience with them.
Part the second:
Welcome to Tiny Choices Q&A, where we open the floor for discussion on questions which y’all have submitted (read the first list of questions here).
Caoimhe asks:
Just a quick question (and this may have been addressed already), for those of us with pooches. So I’ve come to the end of the old plastic bag stash (some leftover from previous homeowner), now I have the dilemma of how to transport doggie poo from street to trash without needing new bags, or walking the dog wearing pooper gloves.
Is there such a thing as environmentally friendly pooper scooper bags?
Caoimhe! there ARE such things as environmentally pooper scooper bags. I saw these bags from biobag, sold specially for pet waste. Biobags states on their webpage that:
The best solution for disposal of pet waste has always been to separate it from the bag or paper and flush it down the toilet. Using BioBags extends your options. The waste and the bag can be thrown in your backyard compost, where both items can decompose naturally; the waste and bag can be buried, where micro-organisms will quickly eat both; the waste and bag can be set at curbside with other yard waste where communities collect biodegradable waste for composting. Please check with your community for disposal options.
Traditionally pet waste is not supposed to go into composters because of the potential presence of microorganisms like ringworm, but if you are into the composting end-of-life option, you can dig a hole in your backyard and create a specialized doggy poo composter pit in the backyard. City Farmer has a lot of information on this technique, and if you use biobags you won’t have to worry about separating the poo from a plastic bag: you can toss both poo and biobag straight into the pit.
you see how closely linked these two topics are? joined by the magic that is the biobag.
Do any of you have innovative ways of dealing with pet waste?
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Topics: Q&A, Waste | 12 Comments »
12 Comments
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I don’t have innovative ways of dealing with pet waste. I wish I did. But over on the kitty litter post, folks had lots to say about their litter choices. I’m still always thinking about potty training Sam…
We often walk our dogs around our yard and when timed correctly that is when they do their doos (instead of down the street with potential doos in someone elses yard - forcing the plastic baggie pickup).
My boyfriend fashioned a pooper scooper from an old dust bin w/ handle combined with an old spade. It’s his job (thankfully!) to walk around the yard and pick up the doos. We (he - again thankfully!) transfers the relatively full bin into one plastic bag on garbage day. We don’t have a dog doo compost pile yet, but I think we’ll be adding one ASAP … seems like a no brainer tiny choice for us suburbia-folk. :)
I read that San Francisco was looking into a dog poop-to-energy scenario. There’s a test project in one of their dog parks with biodegradable bags and dog poop baskets. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0321_060321_dog_power.html
Not sure the latest scoop on that.
We use biodegradable bags in brooklyn, but haven’t figured out a viable means for composting them or converting them to fuel, so we end up tossing them.
No Impact Man says that he’ll use plastic bags from other people’s newspapers or will find something already in public trash cans to pick up his dog’s poop. I have also looked in the dumpster for potential poop scoopers, but that’s usually on desperate occasions.
My house just got the BioBags a couple weeks ago (as part of our college’s new large-scale composting program). I really like that the bags are biodegradable, but my experience is that they start to biodegrade a little bit even before they’re taken out (we only use them for compostables). This results in two things: when I take the compost out to the communal compost bin, I have to take it in the trash can, because otherwise the bag will tear and spill, and also, there’s usually a slightly juicy residue (ew), though a quick rinse in the sink takes care of that before the next bag goes in. Neither of these problems really bothers me, but I don’t use the bags for regular garbage, and I could imagine they’d be more of a pain to deal with if we didn’t have the college’s bigger compost bin right outside our door.
thanks for the input, Anne! I am using mine for regular garbage so hopefully it will be a little dryer than compost.
[...] Compostable Garbage Bags [...]
I love this discussion!
There’s a company in the UK - same as biobags in fact - but they manufacture compostable stuff. I’ve been tempted to call them just to ask “Okay…so what can I change to?” and see what they say. Doggy bags is a good idea! So far I think they do compostable cutlery, compostable cups and so on - but maybe if there’s demand! I can’t wait to see what they think of next.
I think recycling is good - but consider this. 180,000,000 shopping bags burns roughly 800,000gallons of oil. PLA (poly lactic acid) bags…absolutely no oil needed. Just corn. NON GM corn!
http://www.compostablepackaging.co.uk
Any thoughts on bigger compost bins?
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