Suggestions needed on compostable food waste bags

So, in California, a new law is going into effect, now requiring all state residents and state businesses to place all organic materials, including food waste, into the existing "green waste" curbside container. Luckily, some California stores selling a lot of organic produce or organic dry goods have just started selling food waste bags, which help a great deal to avoid leaving a huge sticky mess of former food in our green waste curbside cart. Today at the Santa Monica Cooportunity store, we bought some boxes of food waste bags, which are 3 gallon size ( = 11.4 liters). Each box of these compostable food waste bags sells for $6.29 - US dollars. Bristol Farms markets sell a competing product -- the Compostic wrap or bags.

We just re-organized our kitchen a few minutes ago to help us start using those compostable food waste bags. We took a 2-gallon plastic drinks dispenser and lined it with one of the food waste bags. Probably the most important part of that apparatus is the lid, so that we can avoid creating a wonderful new home for gnats and flies in our kitchen.

I don't know how often we will fill up each bag ... time will tell. Along the top edge of each bag are ties to help close the bag, so that it can be carried up to the green waste curbside cart without making a mess.

If you have not used such an in-kitchen system before, the idea is to capture all former food items, from cherry pits/stems to used coffee grounds to strawberry leaves, dried vegetable stems, animal bones, on and on. Water-based liquids can still go down the drain or into your garden or yard. Used cooking oil should *not* go down the drain, but may be acceptable in your region's organics recycling scheme.

What are your words of wisdom in setting up or using this type of food waste disposal system? We have an in-sink garbage disposal system but avoid using it to cut down on our electric power costs and tap water usage. If you know of better or cheaper food waste bags now on the market, please tell me. Thanks.

a reply to: Uphill

Here in Belgium we had that system for years and I remember in the beginning I really had to get used to it.
I started out with the organic bags to put into the container for the same reasons as you. My experience with these is that they start to decompose shortly after they get wet (from the food) and rip open before you can carry them to the container. They also don't help keep the container 'clean'

Second, you can not put meat or bones in it, these have to go in the other container (grey one over here). And if you put coffee ground in it it will form mold very quickly.

The first months I had a waste storage system in my kitchen, basically it were small mobile containers, one for organic waste, one for plastic, one for paper, one for glass, one for everything else. There was only one container that attracted flies and occasionally had worms in it: the green one!

My advice is to carry the waste straight to the container, that you keep outside.... or store it in a plastic bag that you can empty in the container, then sort the empty plastic bag where it belongs.

Use pieces of the paper on the bottom of the container to absorb the liquids, there are also products you can use for inside the container to absorb smell and keep it clean(er).

After a couple of months I started to use a compost bin in the garden in stead of the green container. Much less work

Hope this helped a bit...

I wonder if this would be good.
We have a big place and a compost pile but apartments and such maybe it would be worth using if not for the $$
Lomi Countertop Composter Review: A Faster, Cleaner Way to Compost at Home
In as little as three hours, this countertop composter by Pela turns food scraps into soil without the stink.
composter

originally posted by: SeaWorthy
I wonder if this would be good.
We have a big place and a compost pile but apartments and such maybe it would be worth using if not for the $$
Lomi Countertop Composter Review: A Faster, Cleaner Way to Compost at Home
In as little as three hours, this countertop composter by Pela turns food scraps into soil without the stink.
composter

You might want to reconsider that after seeing this.

Big waste of electricity.

a reply to: KindraLabelle2 -- that's interesting about the compostable food waste bags being quick to dissolve! Wow. I guess we will start by only half-filling each compostable bag, then, while it's still in the container, tie it closed, take its entire container bucket up to the greens cart and dump the bag in there. Then clean out and dry the container bucket before adding a new clean compostable bag liner. In addition, before we place any such compostable bags in our greens cart, we'll make sure to place some yard clippings or other dry greens waste in the bottom of the greens cart.

So we'll have to take this process one step at a time. California may be *way* behind the times in starting food waste recycling. Better late than never, I guess.

We tried using a few different compost systems in our garden, but way too much wildlife got very interested in those. Gross. In some very rural areas, compost materials could attract bears, for instance, *not* the way to go.

a reply to: Uphill

I'm glad I left Cali last year there's no way in "H" I would go to the trouble of separating organic waste the purple cans were bad enough plus why even bag it ? I understand not wanting to get your can all Fly'd up but the Homeless will tear open those bags at least 50 time before your trash is picked up -- The town I moved to I have not seen one person going through the trash if anything people pick trash up and put it in the cans .

I could make a killing going through these trash cans out here all those Mountain Dew cans baby that's gold lol

originally posted by: Ravenwatcher
a reply to: Uphill

I'm glad I left Cali last year thees no way in "H" I would go to the trouble of separating organic waste the purple cans were bad enough plus why even bag it ? I understand not wanting to get your can all Fly'd up but the Homeless will tear open those bags at least 50 time before your trash is picked up -- The town I moved to I have not seen one person going through the trash if anything people pick trash up and put it in the cans .

I could make a killing going through these trash cans out here all those Mountain Dew cans baby that's gold lol

Some whacked it theories that the ultimate goal is to make eating animals so time-consuming everybody will just want to eat something like Huel or whey protein and not even mess with cooking.

a reply to: Ravenwatcher -- ATS members in the USA live all over, but this thing about recycling food waste is becoming more popular across US regions.

The place where I live is miles from any public transportation, so very few homeless folks live in our area. We used to have our trash cans knocked over by coyotes, which created a huge mess. But then the trash company started using larger trash cans, too big for the coyotes or wild dogs to mess with. Our trash company used to use very small roadside carts for recyclables and for greens, but the cans are now all the same large size.

We don't do recycled food waste here, it goes to the dump. I cannot make a recycle bin, it attracts bears. But all the potato peels and carrot peels and other veggies scraps and old homemade bread goes out to the pregnant does in the yard when they come for breakfast, lunch, and dinner...basically they just stay in the woods by our house. I try not to give them store bread because of the chemicals and wash the potatoes and carrots before peeling. Plus, on top of our scraps...we feed them about five pounds of full carrots, a lot of homemade bread and about fifteen pounds of full potatoes a week.....they come around when they smell the bread baking. They also like homemade pies and homemade cookies...they smell those a mile away when we are cooking those with the windows open.

Our only food scraps are usually bones after they have been boiled for hours to make soup base to make soup. Just got done making bone broth for the freezer, had french onion soup plus put up four quarts of broth in the freezer for future minestrone and onion soups. We hardly waste anything...well, I bought some turkey bacon to try it...it sucks, I am going to toss the other half pound since the baconeater cat won't touch it....not Piper approved. I ate almost half a pound, it really did not sit good in my gut.

a reply to: Uphill

wait until they take it to the next step: chips on the trash containers!
Over here they scan the container and you pay per kilo, from a prepaid account... that's what finally convinced people to recycle. Sometimes they do checks to see what's inside, wrong trash in wrong contains= a fine.
And for those who try to leave their trash in bags on the side of the road, they sent in teams who will go through the trash and try to find something in it to identify whoever left it there. Recycling is a 'thing' here, trash is expensive

a reply to: Uphill

You can cheaply get rolls of compostable dog walking/waste bags.
They are small, cheap, and come in rolls.
You could easily use one in the morning after breakfast/coffee and one at night for after dinner.
Or if there's enough room, only use 1 a day.

originally posted by: Uphill
If you have not used such an in-kitchen system before, the idea is to capture all former food items, from cherry pits/stems to used coffee grounds to strawberry leaves, dried vegetable stems, animal bones, on and on.

My strategy in California was to buy mostly boneless meats so I normally didn't have animal bones to deal with, but the rest of all that I composted in my garden, and that worked well.

originally posted by: Uphill
We tried using a few different compost systems in our garden, but way too much wildlife got very interested in those. Gross. In some very rural areas, compost materials could attract bears, for instance, *not* the way to go.

Well if you're putting animal bones in your compost I guess that would happen. I didn't have animal bones in my compost. Rarely some raccoons would jump the fence to poke around but what they typically ate was the grubs that were eating the compost, and those grubs could also be found in other parts of my yard where I wasn't composting. So they did dig up a little bit going for those, but they seemed to have no interest in coffee grounds, etc.

I know the animal bones from boneless meats have to be dealt with somewhere but the meat packers are set up to deal with them so I let them do it. Anyway that was my largely successful experience, your mileage may vary.

I don't understand why there is so much food waste in the first place. Second, if people composted properly, they wouldn't need special bags. Chickens and other fowl eat food wastes, as do goats, pigs and maggots.

But since the mass humans in large cities may not be able to easily take advantage of mother nature, on a more realistic approach, simple paper breaks down quite quickly but lasts long enough to transport waste. The Chinese takeout boxes minus the little metal handles are paper and break down. They are also white so they don't have inks to break down as well. They come in a multitude of sizes and are secure due to their design. Instead of a box design, they could have a variety of shapes to accommodate the user. But everyone I know has a garbage disposal. I have one which has been used maybe 12 times in 12 years. Having a constant supply of chickens and barn cats, our food never goes to waste. There is always a hungry critter about.

a reply to: KindraLabelle2 -- to everyone, our compostable food waste bag from If You Care did last a whole week. Its only damage was from long pieces of dried-out greens (I'm looking at you, kale) that poked a few holes in the compostable bag wall. So if your fresh green long-stemmed produce doesn't all make it intact to food cooking day, chop the stems into much smaller pieces than I did before dropping them into the food waste bag. Then all will be well.

On Twitter I asked Marta Tellardo (US CEO of Consumer Reports magazine) to have her staff start testing compostable food waste bags. If some of those commercial products do tend to dissolve too quickly, it would be helpful to make the public aware of that problem.

a reply to: KindraLabelle2 -- You're right about the chips and other surveillance. Our trash company currently speaks of taking photos of each trash can each week ... it seems some of our neighbors regularly overload their trash cans and maybe their recycling cans as well. Any such overloading is now an official no-no ... just as well. Basically in our area (Los Angeles county), there are 1 or 2 landfills for trash; when those get filled, no one currently knows what the trash solution then will be.

Anyway, one week on, our trash/organics/recycling cans will get emptied a day later (tomorrow), due to the US Federal holiday on Monday (Memorial Day). The surprise is that I filled up a 2nd compostable food bag today. We did a lot of food shopping this morning at natural foods stores, where both organic grapes and organic yellow corn are now in season for the first time this year. So we bought a lot of vegetables + some fruit, and ate some of the corn for lunch. I was then quickly reminded that fresh corn creates a lot of organic material that has to be disposed of in the compostable bag -- green corn husks (the outer coverings), the inside corn "silk," and then the cob itself once the corn is eaten. That material along with carrot tops completely filled compostable bag #2, so I took that bag up to the greens curbside cart for when everything gets picked up tomorrow. The box of compostable food waste bags I bought last week contains 30 bags, so that will keep us going into the summer.

PS: When chopping up wilted (un-cookable) kale or other cooking greens, go ahead and use pruning scissors for chopping up those wilted raw stems, since they are pretty tough in their uncooked state. I tried using heavy-duty kitchen shears first to cut them up, but shears didn't do the job. The pruning scissors that I use on garden flower stems work much better.

Update on July 15th: I looked up "chewing gum" on the state of California's recycling website. It says that today's chewing gum is not compostable ... so into the trash can it goes. Actually the main time I use chewing gum is when driving a long distance ... it really helps me stay awake/alert so I can drive safely.

a reply to: Uphill -- In July 2022 I bought "Repurpose" compostable food waste bags. Repurpose is made from plants (PLA) and compostable plastic (PBAT), and is intended to be composted at a commercial composting facility. They are described as "extra strong," but time will tell.

I actually like the If You Care bags better, but I also want to have a back-up compostable food waste bag in case the If You Care bags are not always available for purchase in US stores, due to expected supply chain problems for many products.