Compostable bags for the Green Cart and Kitchen Catcher
As everyone is well aware the new recycling program is in full effect. We have to sort our garbage into three different groupings. The blue box(regular recyclable items), green cart(Kitchen food scraps) and regular garbage. Please click on those highlighted words for more details. With this new recycling program comes the additional expense of lining our new green cart and kitchen catcher(see the top left picture) with compostable bags. These compostable bags are the topic of discussion for this post.
This post will look at three companies which manufacture and supply retail outlets with the proper 100% compostable bags for the green cart and kitchen catcher. The three companies are GLAD, BIOSAK and bio*life. We will explore price, size, color and quantity.
GLAD
Kitchen Catcher Green Cart
Quantity: 20 bags Quantity: 10 bags
Size: 16.3in x 16.6 in Size: 23.8 in x 26.5in
Price: $5.99 Price: $7.99
100% Compostable
Colour of bag: White and somewhat clear
Purchased at Sobey’s
bio*life
Kitchen Catcher Green Cart
Quantity: 20 Quantity: 10
Size: 17in x 16in Size: 24in x 30in
Price: $4.49 Price: $5.99
Colour: Clear and see through
100% Compostable
Purchased at Shoppers Drug Mart.
BIOSAK
Kitchen Catcher Green Cart
Quantity: 20 bags Quantity: 10
Size: 16.75in x 17.5in Size: 25in x 30in
Price: $4.99 Price: $5.99
Colour: Brown for both kinds of bags
100% Compostable
Purchased at Home Hardware
There you have it. When Green Carts and Kitchen Catchers were originally sent to homes they were equipped with BIOSAK’s brown compostable bags. Any kind of bag will do, so probably going for the cheapest kind is best. I prefer convenience and I usually do my grocery shopping at Fortino’s located downtown Oakville. However, they had no compostable bags left in stock this morning. I guess many people have been hurrying out and purchasing some.
If you have any comments or would like to share some information about this new Halton Region compost program please leave a comment.
April 7th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I have to say…I started using the Biosak, from Home Hardware…and so far they have been very sturdy and strong…nothing has leaked through, and the bag has held out when I took it from the kitchen to the big bin outside. I will watch and see how it does over the week to see if either the big or the small bags break or leak before the garbage gets collected. I have heard from friends in Toronto who have been doing this for a while…that some brands leak and break…so I will let you know how I make out by the end of this week with this brand…!!!
Thanks for the post and the prices, this is very valuable information - when the bins were dropped off they didn’t specify where you could go and get the liners, or what liners must be in there, just that they had to be biodegradable…!!!
When we picked up our bags, there were still a lot available at the Home Hardware at Maplegrove Village.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:20 am
I would like to know if anyone got the bracket for the smaller kitchen bin so you can attach to the inside of your kitchen cupboard and where I can purchase of pick one up.
Thanks!
April 24th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Hi Linda,
That’s a good question.
I have it sitting in a cupboard under my sink.
I’m sure if you went to home depot they would have some kind of solution for you.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Well, there is a bracket made specifically for it. My sisters who live in the city, got their’s with their exact same bin when they started the green program a couple of yrs ago…….?
I will call the Halton I guess and see if they can hook me up with the distributor. I will let you know !
Linda
April 29th, 2008 at 2:25 am
Hey Linda
When you find out about the bracket, I would be very interested in purchasing one of those myself…I shove it under the sink to get it off my counter, but then the kids forget to put stuff into it…so I would love to have it hanging on the other cupboard door opposite the hanging garbage spot, so it makes it convenient and easy for the kids to remember to do this…they had been so good with the recycling in part because of the school educating them…but with this they keep forgetting…???
Other then that I have found it really does reduce the amount we are throwing out…!!!
April 29th, 2008 at 2:32 am
I did have an additional comment…and I am not sure if anyone else knows anything about this or not…but why did Oakville choose this method of recycling???
In some regions and I think it might be York region…eveyone can use there plastic shopping bags, that they get from the grocery store, to put their compostable items in…I guess at their processing plant the bags somehow get seperated from the compostable materials…it was apparently the type of system they bought…
In Halton the system they bought obviously doesn’t have the capabilities to seperate the bags from the compostable materials so we are forced to buy those bags, and boy do we ever go through quite a few of those bags…
But , in some cases I am very thrilled that we are not in the same boat as the folks from Toronto Region…they can’t use the free grocery plastic bags and apparently they can not even use the compostable bags that we have bought…they have to put it all in the bins and are forced to wash out their bins or they stink…
I guess I am just surprised to find out that there are several methods for doing this compostable recycling and maybe slightly annoyed that we have the one system that requires us to purchse something new every week…!!! (Just glad not to be doing what the TO folks have to do…yikes…!!!)
May 4th, 2008 at 4:16 am
Hi…
i got a flyer in the mail today from Walmart and the Glad compostable bags are on sale there…for the small bucket you can get 100 bags for 4.97 and the large green bin you can get 100 bags for 6.97.
My sister in law also found that Costco had them in boxes of 100 for a very reasonable price.
Just an FYI…!!!
May 4th, 2008 at 5:39 am
BIOSAK contains corn and other vegetables, as does GLAD so if you have severe contact allergic reactions you will have to be careful when using these products, or use a brown bag.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
I am quite dissatisfied with the Glad compostable bags. They leak and break through too soon, within 2 or 3 days. So I started lining the bag with layers of newspaper but it still leaks before the end of the week. So $5.99 plus taxes for 20 small bags that break/leak before pickup day is ridiculous!
By the way, is anyone else annoyed at the sheer amount of TIME spent PREPARING our garbage? Just short of gift-wrapping it with a bow on top…..
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
I found a No Name brand compostable bag at a No Frills, i believe, that I like best so far. It isn’t as thin as the Glad or Biosak ones so not as much leaking. I also line mine with a sheet of newspaper. Price wise I think it’s about comparable.