A personal goal for my family is to eventually have a “dry” garbage can that requires no liner or bag. You see the greenest way to address the plastic garbage bag issue is not to use one. Ideally we would compost all our wet stuff and only put dry stuff in the unlined can. There are a couple reasons why this just cannot be at the moment. First, our kids are still young enough to make lots of messes and a garbage can with no liner would be a nightmare. My youngest for instance has thrown soup or even drinks in there when he is done eating because he can’t reach the sink. Hopefully when they get a little older, and less messy, we can do the dry can thing. Secondly we have no outside cans and all garbage we have has to be bagged and put on the curb for pickup. Still we are motivated to try and overcome these issues over the next year and using more planet friendly garbage bags until that time is a way to alleviate some of our garbage guilt. One part of that is the fact that we just ordered a worm condo for the kitchen where all our food will be composting soon… pretty excited about that!
Anyway, we have been using BagUps for our biodegradable trash bags recently. It is a trash bag system that makes the whole process just a bit easier and lot more planet friendly. I have heard arguments for why bio bags are not that much better than regular plastic since landfills are not conducive to the composting requirements of bio bags but if you have to choose between one or the other I will choose the one most likely to biodegrade. Until we can do a completely dry can, this is the best option.
BagUps uses biodegraable bags and a 100% recyclable box. The box sits at the bottom of the trash can and the bags stay attached to it. When you pull out the bag you just pull at the perforated line and detach it. Then the new bag can just be pulled up and over the can, easy peasy. The key to making this work though is not to overfill the bag though, which could mean more bag usage unless you are motivated to just try to make less garbage, I opted for the latter. They are made in the USA by veterans and people with disabilities so that is another bonus.
Benefits of undergoing a “Trash Can Makeover” include:
- BagUps biodegrade over 2 years, as opposed to the industry standard 2,000.
- You’re buying American made.
- Never having to reach down into the can since the next bag is always attached.
On the downside they are pricier than regular bags. I am not sure why everything green has to immediately cost more. They are also see through, which is probably due to their “green-ness” but since we put our trash on the curb I kinda cringe at everyone seeing everything we have in there, LOL. Not a big deal though.
We have only ever tried one other green garbage bag and we prefer these I think. The others used to rip all the time. if you care to learn more they have a Facebook and Twitter account too.
What does your trash can set up look like? Maybe I can learn a trick or two!
i use empty large feed sacks. they are super sturdy and hold a lot more trash and they are all natural. save a ton of money.
Where do you get them Hannah?
hi Tiffany,
I am sorry i hope you get this. i just saw it today that you replied. my in laws have a lot of animals and they just burn there feed bags. so i asked them to save them for me. they thought it a bit strange but did as I asked. my husband was skeptical too but now doesn”t want to use anything else. they are so strong. to seal them i use a stapler. our trash guy hasn”t complained either.
Do you find that these bags tear easily? We try not to toss out the kitchen trash until it’s very full. We found that BioBag would kind of rip easily if we pressed down on the trash and something like a milk carton corner was poking out. Could get quite messy, dripping all the way down the stairs to the dumpster out back. The Whole Foods generic brand is pretty good. Hefty Renew bags are sturdy (which is just part of the reason why I think they’re not so green).
We had no instances of ripping but you can’t tie them closed if you get them too full.
Glad for this post as I have been starting to look into this issue myself, wanting to get rid of our plastic bags. When you say “dry” garbage, what do we do about the cooked stuff, oils, and animal products? I was under the impression that only fresh plant based materials could be composted.
I also read that the biodegradable bags don’t decompose in the landfills because the landfills are too compact. Also something about many biodegradable bags don’t actually biodegrade anyway, but just break down into tiny polyethylene fragments that microorganisms cannot digest. Any thoughts on this?
What I have been doing is going liner-less, dumping our garbage into the bin outside, and on my way back inside just hosing off the can. But I must admit, it can be pretty gross at times.
Oil can be put in jars and we eat mostly vegetarian here so that is not an issue, the meat or the oil. I think the end game should be to not use any liner/bag… hopefully can transition to that soon!
Does anyone know of any garbage bags made from recycled materials? That is the route I am hoping to take when we need to replenish our supply. Of course my husband bought the 100 pack of kitchen bags about six months ago. As we only use on average one a week, I have some time to figure it out!
I am hoping to start composting this year as well. My goal is to get down to one kitchen bag every other week.
Two additional questions — what do people do with kitty litter and fireplace ashes? I don’t believe I can compost the kitty litter due to the toxoplasmosis issue. However, I was wondering if I could have our cat tested for toxoplasmosis and if he does not have it, could I then compost the litter — he is an indoor cat. As for ashes, I’ve read that too much ashes is bad for your compost bin. We have a wood burning stove that I use almost all winter — thus we have alot of ashes.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated!
Karen
We have three trash cans in our kitchen–two under the sink in the cabinet and one in our freezer. The two cans under the sink each hold 13-gallon bags. One of them has a 13-gal. bio bag into which we throw tissues and other dry non-stinky compostable trash. The other has a 1- to 10-year biodegradable bag (instead of the 1,000 year plastic ones) called Green Genius and that is for trash that unfortunately has to go to the landfill. We keep that to the bare minimum.
The can in the freezer is not actually a can but an old round plastic ice cream container with a snap-on lid. I have a bio bag in there (3-gal.) and I throw all our kitchen food waste into there. Because it’s in the freezer it’s not stinking up our kitchen, which is nice.
I can put the two bio bags out in our compostable yard waste bin for the city to pick up.
None of our bio bags have ever ripped.
The only thing that worries me about biobags is that they create methane gas as they decompose. Kind of like food waste that decomposes. Methane gas creates greenhouse gas emissions, and is said to cause worse damage to the Earth than carbon dioxide emissions.
To me, it is catch 22. Plastic that doesn’t decompose or biobags which creates methane gas. It would help if more states would uses the methane gas from the landfills as energy. However, the GMO part of most biobags scare me. Does this bag use GMO products?
We aren’t using biodegradable bags right now, but this post really made me think about doing so in the near future. We make so little trash as it is–one 13 gal. bag will not even be completely filled after two-weeks of garbage–that I haven’t put much thought into being greener in that area. We compost everything wet, rinse and dry any containers before tossing and since we buy almost everything whole, there isn’t much packaging to speak of.
As for our system, we actually keep two trashcans in the kitchen. One is for garbage and gets emptied every two-weeks, since it rarely fills. The other is for recyclable goods and we empty that daily into our large dumpster (specifically for recyclables) outside. We don’t put bags in the recyclable bin and just rinse it out if it gets dirty.
We do have a few other small trashcans in the house. At the end of the week, I empty their contents into the large kitchen bag and rinse them out. We don’t use bags in any of them. I store bags in the bottom of the kitchen trashcan though, which is similar to the system you mentioned. I still have to reach into it, but that’s easy enough. That way no one ever forgets to put a new bag in, either.
Like you, we don’t have any outdoor trash cans, except for the recyclable bin. We just put trash bags at the curb the night before. It’s quick and easy and we’ve never had trouble with racoons or other marauders.
Cool facts,
love it:):)
I already got that in my home. It is really useful and don’t give you any hassle. It’s good that we got great inventors of things like that.