apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

It would also be wise to reduce the amount of waste that goes into the bags by recycling and reducing the amount of packaging one brings into the home.

Even if these bags break down, landfills are lined and capped, so it doesn't really make a difference. I really don't understand the point of biodegradable products destined for a landfill.

it's interesting to note they wrote it "break down in a landfill environment." that's an important distinction (and i hope they'll share their testing methodology with an inquiring journalist?)

there's a lot of greenwashing about biodegradable products that gladly omits the consideration that even a banana peel, when packed firmly in a landfill lacking light and oxygen, will not degrade, much less a corn-based disposable fork or bio-plastic tray. if you put it in a regular garbage bin, you should generally consider it regular trash, no matter if it's "biodegradable" or not. it bugs me to know people are paying a premium for disposable bioD products, thinking they can buy off their guilt about planning to throwing the stuff away, when there is no actual difference in the result.

will it properly degrade in its garbage-bag-lifecycle before the landfill gets sealed?

i really didn't know any of the info you guys provided. but i'm wondering about the time span leading up to a landfill getting sealed, or however it works?

interesting stuff! time to go googlepedia landfills!

Since all of our garbage goes in our apartment's bins, it all ends up inside a traditional black bag. I'm guessing that means that the smaller bags inside aren't going to break down. Would it make sense to find a company that uses less resources when producing the garbage bags?

Hi Britt,
Three cheers to you for bringing your own bags when shopping! Another eco-friendly (and free) option for trash liners would be to check around and see if you aren't tossing out other bags that might work. Besides being environmentally conscious as well as extremely frugal, we don't have garbage pickup out here on the farm, so we reuse and recycle every little thing we can. This can be both challenging and amusing:

http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2008/03/broccoli-onion-garbanzo-bean-soup.html

I usually line the trash cans that hold our burnable trash (mostly dirty or wet paper) with empty cat food, dog food, and cat litter bags (20 pound, 50 pound, and 25 pound sizes, respectively), as well as empty 50-pound flour sacks. Even smaller cat food bags might work, depending on how much trash you generate.

I recently had a chance to test these Perf Go Green bags myself.

For anyone who's interested, here's a link to the review - http://1greenproduct.com/2008/07/kitchen-outdoor-perf-go-green-recycled.html

Hope you find it useful!

- Aaron Dalton, 1GreenProduct.com