Wouldn’t a compostable organic waste bag be better for the environment?
At first glance, compostable organic waste bags only seem to offer advantages. They allow for hygienic collection of wet kitchen waste at home and can be tied up and easily thrown into the brown bin without getting dirty. But the problems start when it comes to recycling.
While manufacturers of organic waste bags advertise their bags, the vast majority of operators of composting and fermentation plants in Germany refuse to use them for organic waste collection. For this reason, the vast majority of municipalities also exclude compostable organic waste bags from use in organic waste bins.
Some of the compostable organic waste bags are already sorted out in composting and fermentation plants during the pre-sorting process because they are so heavily soiled that they are practically indistinguishable from normal plastic bags in the large organic waste pile. The organic waste bags then end up in the waste incineration plant along with their contents, i.e. the organic waste. If they remain in the recycling cycle, they decompose far too slowly.
