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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?
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gray3144mo ago
Those biodegradable bags are tricky, I've had better luck just tossing scraps straight in loose.
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lee5824mo 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.
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kellyr204mo 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.
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