The Ten Second Plastic Bag Lesson
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Regular polyethylene-based plastic bags can take well over 100 years to degrade and are not compostable.
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Less than 2% of all plastic bags ever get recycled-most end up in landfill.
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Plastic bags litter our streets, backwoods and waterways.
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Studies indicate that 100,000 marine animals and 2 million birds die each year from ingesting or being caught up in plastic debris.
Watch a startling short Movie (~4 minutes) about plastics in our oceans, then use the back arrow to return to our site for more information and products you can use to do your part.
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Some manufacturers are blending additives to polyethylene to produced “degradable” or “oxy-degradable” bags. This process fragments the bags into small pieces of plastic debris which do not meet the ASTM D6400-99 Standard for biodegradable and compostable plastic. These bags leach chemicals into the earth and waterways and can cause serious harm to fish, animals and birds that mistake it for food. In addition, once ingested the chemicals are now present in the food chain.
These oxy-degradable and degradable bags are not compostable and do not fully biodegrade. They are not accepted by municipal composting programs and should be avoided. Be sure to look for the BPI compostable logo or BNQ certification - its your assurance the quality products you purchase are truly compostable and fully biodegradable.
Did you know- Canada has a new compostable and biodegradable certification? Look for BNQ's new Compostables certification on compostable products.
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BioBag products are 100% compostable and 100% biodegradable and carry the BPI compostable logo. BioBag products use no polyethylene in the production process and are fully certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute and Canada's government agency BNQ to be 100% biodegradable and 100% compostable.
Communities that permit plastic to be used in Green Cart Programs do not fully remove all plastic from the final compost - In a recent Toronto Star article The City of Toronto leaves about 27% of the plastic collected in the green carts in the final compost and much of the plastic that is collected is not recycled but rather land filled due to the cost of recycling the plastic film and lack of industrial buyers to purchase the recycled material.
Please be sure that the biodegradable products you purchase are properly certified compostable.
Ecolife's certified compostable BioBag Retail Line Consists of:
BioBag Food Waste Bags (available in retail pack size and bulk packed sizes)
BioBag Tall Kitchen
BioBag Dog Waste Bags
BioBag Leaf &Yard
BioShop Shopping bags
Ecoindustrials (commercial bin liner and rollout cart bulk bags)
EcoProduce Bags