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Originally Posted by opendoor
But what % of those bags actually end up getting used that way?
No one's buying Glad compost bags to use for other things, so almost all of them will end up where they're supposed to in commercial composting facilities. Whereas a compostable grocery bag is probably far more likely to end up in a landfill or in the environment where it won't really break down.
Lots of single-use things can be reused for other purposes, and that's great. But if only a tiny percentage of them are actually getting re-used, then we have to effectively treat them as single-use items that will end up in a landfill or in nature. And if in that respect compostable grocery bags don't provide a whole lot of benefit over the alternatives, then they're not necessarily providing any environmental benefit.
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Well according to the article (and I've heard the same elsewhere) they contain no plastic and break down on their own, in perfect dry storage conditions they start falling apart inside a year.
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The bags do not contain plastic.
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“I started this company about seven years ago because I really, really hate single-use plastics and loathe their existence,” said Jerry Gao, who was quoted earlier this year in the Calgary Herald. “I think they’re some of the worst things we’ve created out of convenience. So the mission statement of the company has always been to get rid of single-use plastics.”
Gao's bags are made with a fully biodegradable polymer and polylactic acid, which is a "plastic substitute made from fermented corn starch." Even the ink used in the product is vegetable-based.
The bags decompose within 10-45 days in a composting facility. And there's no particular evidence that they would last very long in a landfill or on the side of a road, either.
Gao noted that the bags don't even have a long shelf life.
“We have really good storage conditions in Calgary because it’s dry and cool. But even that, within a year, the bags will start coming apart."
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