This post is slightly off-topic as it doesn’t have a lot to do with Nelson Ave. or the neighborhood. However, there are a lot of eco-friendly people on our block and I bet some are wondering the same thing I am: what to do with those “eco-friendly” produce bags from Harris Teeter?
Our local Harris Teeter stores, where I shop occasionally, offers “100% degradable” plastic produce bags. I buy a lot of lettuce, and I have eco-guilt: in other words, what the heck is “100% degradable”? Aren’t these still going to a landfill?
The answer is yes, more or less. The produce manager at Potomac Yards’ Harris Teeter told me that the store accepts the bags back for recycling.
However, representatives from the bag manufacturer, Epi-Global, says that recycling is only appropriate for clean, pre-food bags. Once the bags have been sullied, it’s best to either compost them or toss. Like the corn plastic peanuts, they’ll break down in a regular (non industrial) compost environment, but it’s going to take awhile. My produce bag has been in the compost pile for about 4 months, but Epi-Global estimates it will take 3 years to disintegrate. There is a cool photo on their site, epi-global.com, that shows a bag disintegrating in two weeks. Don’t be fooled, this is a best-best-case scenario.
Biodegradable plastics are better than regular plastics, of course, because they will eventually return to CO2, water and biomass. Still, this inquiry didn’t satisfy me. Does anyone have a better idea of how to stop all the produce bags? Also–if you have a better way of getting restaurants to stop using polystyrene leftover containers, and it doesn’t involve hauling your own Tupperware to a nice restaurant, please let me know.
–Rebecca, 529