Are you in your solution to a zero waste household? If you happen to haul your trash to the curb each week in a plastic trash bag, determining a extra sustainable various to that plastic bag could be difficult. We’ve rounded up just a few greener trash bag alternate options on your consideration that can assist you scale back your single-use plastic trash bag consumption.
This text accommodates affiliate hyperlinks. If you are going to buy an merchandise by one among these hyperlinks, we obtain a small fee that helps fund our Recycling Directory.
Reusable Luggage
There aren’t plenty of reusable trash bag alternate options available on the market, however reusable pail liners have gotten extra widespread. Marley’s Monsters in Eugene, Oregon makes washable pail liners in two sizes. The smaller one suits pails as much as 6 gallons and the bigger one suits most kitchen pails as much as 18 gallons. Manufactured from polyurethane laminate material (PUL), they’re water resistant, machine-washable, and reusable.
Numerous producers provide reusable diaper pail liners, together with Planet Wise, Teamoy, Alvababy, and more, ranging in capability from 5 gallons to 13.5 gallons. These washable pail liners work simply as nicely for family garbage and could be reused dozens of occasions. Reuse is all the time higher than single-use merchandise and eliminating plastic waste destined to be trash is an enormous win.
Plant-based Luggage
Reusable baggage received’t work for normal curbside trash assortment. Nonetheless, you possibly can reduce your Earth-impact by making use of plant-based trash baggage, even when they’re single-use. Utilizing plant supplies as a substitute of plastic is an effective alternative as there’s a smaller environmental impression in rising crops versus mining for oil. Crops are a renewable useful resource whereas fossil fuels, which are used to make conventional plastic, are nonrenewable.
There are numerous choices available on the market together with baggage made from sugar cane, surplus crops, corn starch, GMO-free plants, and lots extra. Many of those plant-based baggage declare to be compostable, which brings us to our subsequent greener trash bag various.
Compostable Luggage
Compostable baggage break down into natural materials over time, usually lower than a 12 months. On your landfill trash, compostable baggage are additionally useful since they scale back the leftover microplastic air pollution in a landfill. That is supreme in case you are hauling yard waste to a composting facility or shifting meals waste destined to be composted. There are numerous compostable baggage available on the market and most comprise plant-based content material. Try well-reviewed UNNI ASTM, ProGreen, and HoldOn compostable baggage.
It’s vital to know that “compostable” doesn’t all the time imply you possibly can drop the bag in your house compost pile. Most merchandise that carry the “compostable” label require industrial composting (additionally known as commercial composting), by which the pile reaches a better temperature than at residence. Business composting breaks down materials quicker and extra fully. Take the time to test whether or not you possibly can place the bag in your house pile or if it should be despatched to a industrial composting facility.
U.S. buyers ought to search for the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) label. The BPI web site offers a searchable record of compostable merchandise, however take note it confirms solely {that a} product could be industrially composted. The European TUV Dwelling Compostable Licensed label, if out there, identifies merchandise that you may confidently compost at residence. You possibly can search (although it’s designed for enterprise and never straightforward for buyers to make use of) for residence compostable merchandise on the TUV website.
Recycled Content material Luggage
One other greener choice for single-use waste baggage is utilizing a bag with recycled content material. It’s widespread eco-knowledge that using any type of waste and making it into a brand new product is best than utilizing virgin oil to make a single-use plastic merchandise.
There are numerous recycled content material baggage to select from. We suggest in search of certifications to distinguish manufacturers. For instance Evolution Trash Bags are licensed by the UL ECOLOGO Program. Additionally, think about well-reviewed manufacturers comparable to Neat or manufacturers which were doing this eco-product factor for some time comparable to Seventh Generation.
DIY Trash Luggage
Maybe the greenest various to a typical plastic trash bag is to make your individual trash bag. Discover some folding instructions for a lot of sizes of luggage on the Make Your Own Zone. These instructions instruct crafters to utilize newspapers however you can too make baggage out of mailer adverts (much like a newspaper) or leftover craft paper. After all, paper baggage can solely be used for dry waste so this selection is finest for an workplace or rest room waste bin. Reusing what you have already got readily available and have already used is likely one of the greenest choices for waste baggage.
Perhaps Skip That Liner
What are the bagging guidelines on your waste hauler? Maybe you possibly can skip the trash can liner altogether; vehicles that dump the waste straight into their compactor could can help you nix the bag. We suggest you inquire about this various earlier than placing it in place. However, most recycling applications require supplies to be unbagged; nonetheless, it’s not the identical in each group. If you happen to do must bag your waste, think about solely lining one massive trash bin in your house and dumping all bins into that one bag. You possibly can minimize down on bag utilization significantly when you solely use one.
Even when your own home is zero waste, you do nonetheless want to gather compost and recycling. Selecting a greener choice on your waste assortment bag is one solution to make your life gentler on the Earth.
Initially printed on February 3, 2021, this text was up to date on February 12, 2023, by the Earth911 editorial staff.