Give your dog a green makeover with pet waste BioBags.
As resourceful as it may seem to reuse tradional plastic shopping bags for picking up after your pet, sending waste to the landfill like that will preserve it for hundreds of years! That’s how long it takes for petroleum-based bags to decompose in landfills, prompting some communities to ban them from their stores altogether.
Obviously, the responsible thing to do is bring your own reusable shopping bags to the store, which means finding a different, eco-friendly alternative for picking up after your dog.
“The Bag With a Conscience,” BioBag is the world’s largest manufacturer of biodegradable and compostable bioplastic bags. Theirs is a company with a long history that started way back in 1957.
At the time, this Norway-based company (then called Polar Gruppen AS) made the traditional petroleum-based bags. But as the negative environmental impact of these bags became evident, they changed their mission accordingly, forming BioBag International in the 90s:
To help divert all naturally biodegradable waste from entering landfills – food waste, yard waste, paper and pet waste.
“Changing the world without changing the earth,” BioBag started using Mater-Bi, the first completely biodegradable and compostable bio-polymer material. In addition to pet waste bags, BioBag carries an entire line of alternative bioplastic products for your home, yard and garden.
BioBag Pet Waste Bags can be tossed right into your compost bin, bag and waste included.
Pet waste bags. Dog waste collected in compostable Pet Waste BioBags can be tossed directly into the compost bin. Just be sure it is a bin for compost that will be used on ornamental plants only.
Kitty litter liners.
When coupled with a compostable kitty litter, BioBag Cat Pan Liners can go into the compost bin, litter and all. BioBag cautions against composting cat waste itself, advising instead that you always put cat waste in the trash because of its high toxicity levels. There are different schools of thought on this, so if you choose to compost your cat’s waste, be sure you take the same precautions as with dog waste and only add it to a bin from which compost will only be used on ornamental plants.
Lawn and leaf bags. Hopefully you have a city-issued bin specifiically for rolling your compostable yard waste to the curb. If not, or if your bin is full, you can rely on compostable Lawn and Leaf BioBags. They will hold their form for up to 12 days when full, at which point the contents inside will start to decompose the bags.
Green your cat with every step in its kitty litter box, lined with BioBag Cat Pan Liners and filled with compostable litter.
Kitchen compost bags.
Intead of dealing with the mess of your compost pail every time it needs to be emptied, line it with BioBag Food Waste Bags. Like all BioBag products, the material “breathes” so that the smelly rotting process will be delayed while food is sitting on your kitchen counter. Then at your convenience, toss the bag and its contents into your compost bin.
Mulch film. This is a popular product among organic farmers and universities. By heating up the soil temperature, mulch film helps accelerate the germination process. It also reduces the need for herbicides and pesticides, and cuts down on irrigation costs. Then there is the added convenience of biodegradable, compostable BioBag Mulch Film naturally breaking down into the soil, saving time and energy as you need not collect it later.
When composting your dog's waste, the Pet Poo Bio-Converter makes it easy to keep pet waste separate, for use only on ornamental plants.
As someone adamantly opposed to GMO products, I am especially thrilled to report that only non-GMO corn is used for the Mater-Bi material. In fact, they will not even purchase corn in a country that is involved in GMO testing. This eliminates the U.S., of course, instead relying on corn grown in Italy and other parts of Europe.
It’s also worth noting that you should not be fooled by imitation biodegradable bags. Some manufacturers are now adding chemicals to their plastic bags so as to mechanically break down the material, which must not be confused with a biological breakdown.
“It is illegal for them to state that their bags are biodegradable,” says CompostMania co-founder Karl Warkomski, ”so they call them ‘degradable.’ The additives allow the plastic to physically break down into tiny flakes, but the plastic is still there. You are still stuck with the bags, but now in 5,000 smaller pieces. Microbes cannot break the bonds in these imitation bags or in the flakes, so those bags cannot be digested in your compost pile or out in the environment.”
“During a garbage clean up event, have you ever tried picking up a bag that has the additive? It is impossible to grab them because they break and there are little pieces scattered everywhere — a total nightmare!”
As with any compostable product, it must be composted in order to work. Yes, the BioBag material will break down faster in the landfill than a traditional plastic bag, but deprived of air and moisture, it cannot properly decompose as intended within 10 to 45 days.
“Backyard composting rates vary,” says BioBag’s Jennifer Wagner. “Same as banana peels and apple cores, that’s about how long for your bags.”
Image credit (top left): http://www.flickr.com/photos/morch/520695697/
Image (bottom right): Pet Poo Bio-Converters
Biodegradable bags are the way of the future.
We will arrange to take up the operation and will interact with the residents for source segregation and the segregated waste will be transferred to OWC room by the housekeeping staff.