Question: What product do we buy just to throw out again? Answer: Garbage bags.
New “green” products, like biodegradable garbage bags, are a hot topic. But it’s usually best to manage with fewer products instead of buying more, even if they are “green.”
In most cases, biodegradable bags pose less danger to landfills and groundwater and are a better choice than conventional garbage bags.
When biodegradable bags start to decompose, the nutrients from your garbage go right into the earth. But what if you have spray cans, batteries or other contaminants in your garbage? Using a biodegradable bag will increase the likelihood of dangerous chemicals leaching into the ground.
Here are tips for using fewer garbage bags:
- Create less waste by using up leftovers, shopping carefully, avoiding disposables, and choosing products with less packaging.
- Reuse bags from gifts and purchases for your garbage cans, especially for non-biodegradable items.
- Separate. Peels, plant cuttings, cores, newspapers and shells can be composted and turned into fertilizer for plants.
- Recycle cartons, papers, newspapers, cans, plastic and bottles.
- Batteries should be placed in collection bins for that purpose only. Don’t forget the small batteries found in toys and watches.
- Consider skipping the bag, especially for dry waste. Dump contents of your garbage can straight into the larger bin.
Do you have tips for greener household garbage? Please share them in the comments.
More garbage-reducing tips on Green Prophet:
Drinking Beer in Cans and Other Middle Eastern Recycling Problems
Ten Ways to Buy Less When You Breastfeed Your Baby
For tips on making less garbage by preserving food, using leftovers, and cooking from scratch, see Hannah’s website Cooking Manager.
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Author: Hannah Katsman
Hannah learned environmentalism from her mother, a conservationist before it was in style. Once a burglar tried to enter their home in Cincinnati after noticing the darkened windows (covered with blankets for insulation) and the snow-covered car in the driveway. Mom always set the thermostat for 62 degrees Fahrenheit (17 Celsius) — 3 degrees lower than recommended by President Nixon — because “the thermostat is in the dining room, but the stove’s pilot light keeps the kitchen warmer.” Her mother would still have preferred today’s gas-saving pilotless stoves. Hannah studied English in college and education in graduate school, and arrived in Petach Tikva in 1990 with her husband and oldest child. Her mother died suddenly six weeks after Hannah arrived and six weeks before the first Gulf War, and Hannah stayed anyway. She has taught English but her passion is parental education and support, especially breastfeeding. She recently began a new blog about energy- and time-efficient meal preparation called CookingManager.Com. You can find her thoughts on parenting, breastfeeding, Israeli living and women in Judaism at A Mother in Israel. Hannah can be reached at hannahk (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
You are wrong about ALL biodegradable bags being good. Biobased ones which cannot biodegrade in landfills and sit there for hundreds of years and oxy-degradabale ones which many leave heavy chemicals behind.There are some good biodegradable bags that are landfill biodegradable, like Green Film.When they end up in the landfill they biodegrade into humus then into methane , which is GOOD! Methane is now harvested in 75% of all landfills in the US and creates energy like electricity more cheaply than solar or wind power.