From enriching gardening soil and lessening the need for chemical fertilizers to reducing methane emissions in landfills, the benefits of composting are many.
For years, proactive folks have been starting their own at-home composting programs to process such items as raw fruit and veggies, teabags, coffee and eggshells. These days, though, an increasing number of Canadian municipalities are supporting these efforts with organic waste diversion programs that accept additional items such as meat, fish and bones.
But let’s face it: the process of sorting, storing and then discarding of food scraps in a kitchen bin, or an outdoor receptacle, can be less than pleasant.
Whether you have a shared outdoor organics bin in your strata complex, or you live in a single family dwelling where you own the Green Cart receptacle which holds food scraps and yard waste, as a composter, there’s a strong chance you might encounter an unpleasant mess, says Jennifer Duncan, regional account and retail supervisor with Bag to Earth, while sitting in her sunny backyard in Port Moody.
But Bag to Earth, the creators of the 100 per cent natural compostable paper food waste bags, hopes to prevent that from ever happening.
Since 1946, the Napanee, Ontario-based company has been manufacturing Kraft paper packing products for a variety of industries, and their food waste bags, available in a small size designed to sit on a counter, and a large size made to fit in a receptacle on the floor, make the composting process as luxurious and comfortable as possible.
One of the main barriers to beginning an at-home composting program, other than the lack of a municipal composting program, says Duncan, is the learning curve involved.
“A lot of people think they’re creating more garbage by composting,” she explains. But with her family’s composting program, which involves separating sources into recycling, garbage and food scrap components, Duncan has been able to reduce garbage to one bag every two weeks for her family of four.
Other barriers to composting involve aversion to odours that can result from leaving food scraps in a bin on the counter for days at a time, leakage from composting bags, and the mess that can happen when transporting food scraps from your home to curb-side or to a shared receptacle in a condo dwelling.
Bag to Earth’s food waste bags take care of these issues, leaving residents with no excuse not to compost. All bags are lined with a natural cellulose fibre making them leak-resistant and able to hold such items as watermelon rinds, wet paper towels and tea bags. They’re also made from 100 per cent natural and renewable resources that are regenerated in sustainably managed forests, unlike some other compostable plastics, which are made from food sources, or even plastic. Every component of the bags—from the paper to the glue to the vegetable-based inks—is 100 per cent compostable.
Although Bag to Earth’s cellulose lining has a clear and shiny appearance that could be mistaken for plastic, it is actually completely natural, and it is most definitely not plastic.
Actually, plastics, including bio and compostable bags, do not fully disappear into the earth; they simply break down into smaller and smaller particles. As a result, they are banned from many municipal food waste programs. When shopping be sure to look for the plastic-free, leak-resistant, natural fibre liner caption on Bag to Earth waste bags.
Worried about odours? Duncan says Bag to Earth’s compostable food waste bags are designed to be folded over and secured with a clip which is very effective at keeping odours from escaping into the air. “You can even put meat in here and it doesn’t smell,” says Duncan. “Then, when it’s full, you take the clip off and put it directly into your Green Cart. This way you don’t have a messy kitchen bin to clean up,” Duncan explains.
Essentially, Bag to Earth provides easy, clean, hassle-free, odour-free, no-mess transport of food scraps from your kitchen to your Green Cart, with no kitchen-catcher to clean out when you’re done, says Duncan. What could be simpler?
