We found these bags at our grocery store and have been using them to line our kitchen compost bucket, but haven’t put any in our compost bin for fear that they won’t actually break down. These claim to be home compostable, not just compostable in a facility. I can’t seem to find any reviews from anyone who has actually attempted to compost them. Has anyone tried these and had any luck?
by miss_sharty_pants
23 Comments
Im not sure about that brand but I found the best solution for me was to use no bag at all and just wash the bin out every day after dumping it in the pile or use a paper fast food bag if we happen to have one. Paper bags break down very quickly
I would honestly get a bucket with a lid. I empty my used container that used to have trail mix in it every day or two. There is no need for excess products, this is about reduction of waste.
I would just skip them altogether honestly. As long as your container is easily cleaned.
Do you have curbside organic collection for leaves, grass, food & food-soiled paper? If yes, meh, it’s fine. It’s going to a commercial composter along with materials from a half million of your friends & neighbors.
You don’t need to line your food scraps bucket though. You could put junk mail in the bottom of your bucket to keep it relatively clean. Junk mail breaks down just fine.
These “compostable” liners are just a marketing scheme.
Or.
Are you considering putting this into your backyard compost? Coz if you’re composting in your back yard, you don’t need fancy bucket liners. You just chuck it into your back yard pile, rinse it and throw the water on the pile too.
Don’t do it. Those bags will be in your compost forever. They don’t compost
I reuses an old ice cream pail. Every couple days, I dump it onto the compost and rinse it out with a hose. Never saw the need to use a bag.
I don’t line my food scrap bucket with anything – I dump it in the compost and then rinse it out before it goes back under my sink. I think these are just marketing!
When I empty my scrap bucket I like to spread it out abit over the top. I don’t want a neatly packaged blob.
Nope! I use a stainless steel bucket with a lid and when I empty it outside I rinse it out and dump the water in the compost bin. Kills 2 birds with one stone.
The testing standard for these is “90% material degradation into particles smaller than 2mm, no negative impact on compost quality, and no excess heavy metals or harmful substances, verified by third-party testing”, within 90 days in a generic backyard cold pile.
So as long as your pile doesn’t completely dry out, that’s about what you can expect.
The key difference between “home compostable” and “commercially compostable” certified bioplastics is the temperature requirement: home compostable should work in a cold pile, commercially compostable requires optimal hot composting conditions for a length of time that’s extremely rare at home.
All that being said… I’d personally keep them out of my home pile, just so I don’t have to worry about them. Use washing the bucket as a chance to water your pile of you’re in a dry climate.
Every compostable bag I’ve ever seen online meant industrially compostable. No bueno.
Use the newspaper from those grocery coupon ads you probably get 3x a week in the mail, the brown paper from amamzon packages, etc to line the bin instead
Step 1: buy a giant plastic tub of cheese balls with resealable lid
Step 2: eat cheeseballs
Step 3: use the bin as your compost bin until it gets too gross or breaks
Step 4: repeat process
It’s just me and my stainless steel fridge bowl
I keep a large Tupperware in the freezer. Never have to worry about smells or needing to rush to toss anything. Surprised more people don’t just do that. (I know not everyone has space but still)
That’s literally plastic. Get paper bags. Worms love to eat them
I just use regular old brown paper lunch bags
They came with my bin. They’re too short for the bin, and too flimsy.
I don’t know about this brand, but I have tried bags and it was more trouble than it was worth. They leak and fall apart. I personally keep a bowl on the counter. I strategically start the day with the coffee filter and grinds on the bottom so it flips out easily at the end of the day. Toss the bowl in the dishwasher a few times a week when space allows.
buying something from the store just to be put straight to your compost kinda ruins the idea of composting to me.
rinsing “the bucket” after dumping its comtents into the composter is not that big of a deal. line it with some paper or at least put some paper on the bottom so it empties easily.
I was given a roll of home compostable bags, but frankly I’ve never actually used them. I just rinse the kitchen compost caddy out with the hose after dumping it out. Consider it a chance to add a little extra moisture to your pile!
I use an addis caddy. It lives under the sink. In summer, it will get emptied almost everyday. In winter, when its full.
Never found any bags to be decomposable in the timescale of composting.
We tend to layer in bits of kitchjen towel and letter mail to absob the moisture.
Don’t bother with this stuff. Instead every time you empty your bucket shred some cardboard and leave it at the bottom before adding anything else. It really helps stop the stinky sludge appearing because any moisture gets absorbed into the cardboard. And by the time it’s totally saturated the bucket is hopefully full.
This means you don’t need to buy bags and you are always adding greens and browns together to your pile.