Question: biodegradable kitchen garbage bags

[scooterlaru]

I've been trying to switch over to using cloth bags and the like in an attempt to reduce my use of plastic bags

Comments

[lavvyan]

$47 for a box? *gapes*

How many are in there?

[breakableheart]

We have a small can in the kitchen which we empty into the big can outside every day. Small like bathroom can size small. It doesn't ever get a chance to get nasty because we empty every night and if there's a little wet/liquid/mess inside the can we give it a quick rinse at the hose (located right next to the big can outside).

This is convenient for us now but when we lived in a condo it was a long trek to the dumpster so it didn't work. But now? Great! No bags, no waste!

[labellementeuse]

Assuming you put your non-biodegradable waste in a council/prepay rubbish bag eventually - what I've had suggested to me (but have yet to implement, because at the moment I'm satisfied with merely severely reducing rather than eliminating my use of plastic bags, so I'm OK with using up my store of plastic supermarket bags from before we switched to cloth) is lining the bin with a layer or two of newspaper, and emptying into the council bag regularly. Something that goes along with this is freezing non-biodegradable food waste (cooked food, pits from stoned fruit, etc - stuff that can't go on the compost.) Basically, this means that most of the rubbish you're putting in your bin isn't leaky, messy, or going to attract rodents. Then, the day before rubbish collection, get the bag out of the freezer and empty it into the council bag or bin with the rest of the trash.

Of course, this kinda depends on reading a newspaper once or twice a week...

[ainsley]

What's a council bag?

[labellementeuse]

Oh. Um... In New Zealand, you buy council rubbish bags from the council (depending on where you live: where I live the council gives you 26 bags a year and you provide however many extra you need yourself, some places they don't give you any, some places they give you however many you need) and on rubbish day the council rubbish trucks take away only waste in these bags (and recycling, which is free and unlimited.) The bags are a pretty decent size, IMO a good rubbish person should be able to get a week's worth into one for a four-person household. How do people other places work it?

[ainsley]

Here we buy all our bin liners/trash bags ourselves, and as I live in a subdivision outside of city limits, we either pay a private service for weekly pickup or haul it to the dump ourselves. Recycling we have to take to the dump.

I've never heard of anywhere in the States where bags are provided, but garbage and recycling are handled locally, and even within the same city your experience will differ based on if you live in an apartment or a house or whatnot.

[sansets]

What I do is leave my cloth bags at home for groceries once a month and get them bagged in paper bags. The amount of bags from that one trip usually last me in trash can liners for the rest of the month and I am using the environmentally friendly bags the rest of the time!

[twospots]

I always used to reuse grocery bags, but now that I've become more diligent about shopping with cloth bags, my stash is running out. I'll probably buy Lee Valley's compost bags (here). They're 25 for $7.50 or 100 for $21.50 in Canadian dollars.

The other thing I've thought about doing is asking neighbours or friends for their grocery bags, which wouldn't create any extra waste, and would get those bags used one more time before they went to the landfill. It would also eliminate the energy used in producing the brand-new compostable bags, which, on one hand, is a good thing... but on the other, I *do* like to encourage greener products, so... yeah.