That farmer's market in Austin made me rethink my whole compost setup

I was at the sustainable living booth near the entrance last Saturday and a guy from the city's waste department said 40% of compostable stuff from markets still ends up in landfills because people bag it wrong. He showed me a pile of plastic-lined bags mixed in with the food scraps from just that morning. Has anyone else found a reliable way to tell if those 'biodegradable' bags actually break down in your local system?

3 comments

3 Comments

gray31424d ago

Those biodegradable bags are tricky, I've had better luck just tossing scraps straight in loose.

lee58224d ago

Yeah, and the smell gets trapped in those bags. I tried the cornstarch ones last summer and after a week in the heat, the whole bin was a soupy mess of half-broken-down plastic and rotten food. It was way worse than just dumping the scraps and rinsing the bin. Now I just use old paper bags from the grocery store if I need a liner.

kellyr2024d ago

But the cornstarch ones are supposed to break down in a proper compost setup, maybe your pile just wasn't hot enough. That soupy mess is actually a good sign they're working.