It often is impossible to completely clean these kinds of kid made messes.

When intentional messes come up, like picking up after Legos, or tinker toys–often pre-planning is the most efficient means of clearing a messy play area quickly. One method is the draw string circular tarp method: Which involves cutting a piece or tarp that lays in a flat large diameter as the play area. When the multifaceted toy(s) are no longer of interest, the parent teaches the child to draw the string up, and the entire play area is contained in the resulting draw string tarp bag.

This method won’t work with packing peanuts. They get scattered over lawns, earthen floors of wooden areas under tree forts, in abandoned storm shelters that are now kid forts.

If a gardener digs down far enough in a neighbourhood that has been built over a pre-existing trash heap: Discarding packing material and other things surface over time in the garden.

Before biodegradable alternatives started being offered: these light weight packing peanuts were the environmental bane of every shipping and freight yard in America.

They were an environmental disaster twisting freely in the spiraling wind. Like insects they were too light weight for any maintenance crew to catch or chase down.

In the past janitorial staff and grounds keepers would have to hope they blew away, or wait until the wind died down, and hope to sweep them all up before a new gust picked them up again.

These light weight cushions often get picked up by the wind, after shipping and moved for miles.

They get swept up into trash cans, only to be knocked or nudged free by foraging animals, and exposure to the wind.

This is why anyone who uses packing peanuts to ship materials should use biodegradable packing peanuts.

These are the kind that archaeologists won’t find two thousand years from now.

They will have long decayed into natural soil and nutrient deposits: Or, been blow to the river and consumed safely by aquatic life nearly two thousand years prior to that inquiring dig.

These biodegradable packing peanuts are not only good for shipping. They make great party confetti.

They are great for dumping off the roof of a church, Masque, temple, or meeting hall on top of the heads of fleeing newly-weds. In fact these biodegradable packing peanuts are safer for birds than rice.

So, let the biodegradable packing peanuts get shipped around, then tossed by children into the wind as additional cushion in raked leaf piles, and tossed down at weddings, food fights, and town square pillow fights. Then get picked up by the beaks of birds, and dropped in water ways across America. It won’t matter; because they are environmentally safe.

If you have to send the trash in the collection truck to the land fill, you can do so with a clear conscience with Seventh Generation trash bags.

These bags are made from recycled plastic. That means that the bag is not going to break down much more than it has.

The manufacturer states that these bags are free of petrochemicals. In most cases that means that the product comes from a plant source. Often fruit fibers are used in creating various types of plastics.

Plastics made from fruit, bark, and vegetable fibers are easier for the elements to break down safely. They are also easier for smaller animals to consume.

Each Seventh Generation kitchen trash bag box contains 20 count boxes of 13 gallon bags.

These bags can be purchased online from Seventh Generation twelve boxes at a time. You can also search for other sizes and amounts including the 30 and 33 gallon variety.

There is no need to throw them in the trash. But if you do throw them away, you will have confidence in knowing that they will not add to pollution in the environment.

If birds pick up a biodegradable fork, knife or spoon from the land fill, they can be eaten safely. If birds drop pieces of them in the water, or if they go overboard during a boating party, the vegetable based plastic will not harm fish.

You can purchase them individually in packages of 1000 and have enough for many years to come.

Biodegradable Utensils: Knives, forks and spoons:

This large count is ideal for large family get together, hospitals and cafeterias, large outdoor catered events, schools, art gallery open houses, rallies, conventions, stands, parties, and businesses.

Clear Biodegradable Cold Cups:

Biodegradable cold cups can be either clear or have a printed logo or message on them.

You can also purchase the Flat Lids For 12/16/20/24-Ounce Corn Cold Cups

These PLA cups are made from corn.

Unlike petroleum based cups they will easily biodegrade.

This greatly reduces the long and short term effects of these cold cups that are truly designed for not much more than one time use.

In the past, petroleum plastic cups would be designed for casual one time use. The affect on the environment was, (and is) anything but one time for petroleum based plastic cups.

The good news is with eco friendly cold cups all that can be avoided. And one time use truly means one time use.

This is also the case for the PLA based corn plastic lids and straws.

Not only for the occasion they are purchased for, but also for the environment. When these products break down it is the last time we have to hear or worry about them.

This plate was designed to be sturdy. It doesn’t let food leak through.

The plate also is designed for your one time use. Then it will degrade rapidly when left to the elements.

You can serve your family, housemates, and friends with the assurance that one time disposal doesn’t mean long term cost to the environment.

In fact you can put these plates in your compost. It will actually be beneficial.

The plate is made from sugar cane fiber. The plate will actually in rich the soil of your garden or flower bed.

Imagine after a meal not having to do dishes; save any pots and pans. All the glass ware, napkins, forks, serving spoons, knives, plates bowls, juice, beverage and coffee cups all go into a bag, along with the scraps, out the back door, tied up, and left to be mixed into the garden or compost. Find other utensils by Stalkmarket on Amazon.com!

If you live in a building, your scraps and left over biodegradable plates will degrade easier in a land fill.

Biodegradable plates made from sugar cane fibers are finger licking good from the serving to the grave.

Not all hot cups are bridgeable. But finding a line will keep anyone from having to do a lot of dishes after an outing, party, or potluck.

This kind of cup also reduces wasted space in landfills. This space can be reserved for more serious trash disposal needs.

Eco Hot Cups turns out to be a great find. They are 100% compostable. These cups will degrade in sixty days of less!

In your office cafeteria these biodegradable hot cups will greatly reduce the negative foot print that had been left on the environment by coffee cups and soup cups from offices alone.

This is also a great way to show employees that your company is about more than just monetary profit. And it demonstrates that your firm believes that the greater good is a means of profit as well. And that the environment is worth investing in yes?

This promotion of green space value will send a positive message about you, your firm, it’s workforce and client base.

Eco-Products Biodegradable Cups, World Design

Getting children and family friends used to reaching for 100% biodegradable hot cups while shopping online, at a dollar store, or at large is a great way to begin to reinforce sound familial care taker practices that will carry over into green space preservation for centuries to come.

Eco hot cups are ideal for the environmentally conscious coffee shop. The hot cups are stylish. The sizes fit the standards customers are used to buying in cozy coffee shops around the corner or down the street the world over. These cups range from 4 oz. taste tester to over indulgent (in a good way) 24 oz mais vente offering.

The Eco hot cups reflect interesting understated facts about how these cups and other efforts are saving green space across the country, and around the planet.

They come in green strip bottom with plain white cup body, and world art.

Eco-Products Green Striped Hot Biodegradable Cups

The base color for the world art variety changes with each size or serving portion increase. 4oz being heavily creamed coffee tone, through the dark coffee tones of rich dark brown. These browns increasingly become lighter in coffee bean reflective earth tones. The largest of these cups is a light blue base under the artistic global overlay.

Eco hot cups are that much more cozy to hold. They give the beverage feeling of warm comfort that reflects just a bit more; since the drinker knows the warm indulgence will reduce negativity more than was possible before.

Eco hot cups, eco hot cup lids, and eco grip sleeve jacket, insulators are tremendously reducing the impact of unnecessary pollution from comfort hot drink waste across America.

They are made by Eco Products which is a company based out of Boulder Colorado and they can be purchased at competitive prices on Amazon.com which helps support our efforts to review this product here, thank you!

BioBag Kitchen Bags tall kitchen size are good for lining the traditional garbage can, and still do the same job as the food wastesize developed for the MACP but on a larger scale, more commonly used in raking up leaves in the back yard, at barbecues or even for commercial restaurants that already have a composting program going and are looking for a more economical solution than the constant cleaning that comes with nasty food waste barrels.

BioBag Kitchen Bags have a use and use again motto, because they work great as food grade quality refrigerator storage vegetable bags as well as compost pail liners, impeding leakage, but yet still allowing heat and moisture to escape from within.

This breathing quality allows food to stay fresh even longer than with traditional petroleum plastics, plus they can be used again in the compost pail for food wastes, then tied up and plopped into the compost pile for quick, efficient and tidy results that meet peoples standards for being ecologically friendly as well as hygienic.

Like all biodegradable bags, BioBag Kitchen Bags have a shelf life and need to be kept in dry places away from intense heat, nor should they go into a landfill, as it can slow their decomposition process up to as long as two years in some cases where as in the compost pile or just outside in the weather, they will degrade more rapidly.

BioBag Kitchen Bags come in two sizes, tall kitchen and food waste, the food waste size is for lining sink-side compost pails such as the Max Air, while the tall kitchen size is great for commercial use in lining any traditional sized trash bin.

BioBag Kitchen Bags allow for a sharp and intelligent way to deal with CO2 emission offsetting right at home or at your place of work, without giving up the creature comforts we have all come to appreciate and enjoy, doing wellfor the planet by doing well to ourselves.

There are two main kinds of biodegradable bags A.K.A biobags, one is more environmentally friendly than the other, those with starch based polymers are greener and those petrochemically produced bags with an additive base hold up like the real deal but release CO2 upon breakdown.

Each kind has strong points, and each their specific weak points, but which solution is more sustainable for a given population really depends on the location of composting facilities in the area, and the specific needs of that given population.

Not everyone enjoys the starch based Polythene film products because certain precautions need to be taken in regard to how they are used.

They do not replace petroleum plastics in the sense that they are not as rugged or enduring, having a lifespan and shelf-span, much like food products do.

Starches like wheat, corn and potatoes are usually used, meaning that this product competes with those kinds of food products, possibly even threatening consumption both of the food and the plastic product as crop yields help determine prices and supply.

Agriculturally speaking, this is an alternative that will eventually stimulate the area to produce more starch-based crops and alternative methods of production will come about the more space is restricted and consumer demands grow, but eventually the conditions for a more self-sufficient economy will become ever clearer.

Starch-based Polythene is also known as biobased (hydrodegradable) and reaches the American Standards for Testing Materials as well as the European norms for compostability degrading in 60% under 180 days.

Polymers that usually use starch are Polycaprolactone (PCL), Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and Polylactic acid (PLA), all used to control the microbial breakdown, only allowing breakdown in the presence of microbes, heat, moisture and proper aeration, such as those conditions found in traditional compost piles.

Additive based plastic bags on the other hand are our traditional plastic bag films with a special chemical adjustment so as to make them breakdown more readily under certain conditions.

Instead of taking hundreds of years to breakdown, these plastic bags will take only six months to two years, accelerating their breakdown process considerably, clearing up landfills and other litter issues, such as those found in nation parks, forests, sewers, storm drains and other water ways.

So are these additive-based compostable bags a more sustainable alternative? Not really, they certainly dont need consumers to be aware of how to use them, and they work just like what consumers have now, but they release CO2 upon degradation and petroleum is a limited resource that depends greatly on foreign affairs of state, which contributes to instability.

In the first stages of decomposer, oxygen, light, heat and/or stress react on a molecular level, fragmenting the film in such a way that water can wet and surround its molecules, thus making it readily biodegradable, leaving only CO2, water and biomass once microorganisms get a hold of it.

These oxodegradable/photodegradable plastic bags may make things easier without causing much change in the consumers lifestyle today and cost a little less right now when compared to those that are starch based, but in the long run, this is not a sustainable alternative, thus they do not meet European standards for compostability.

Between the two main alternatives in compostable bags, starch based trash bags are less resistant than the traditional plastic bags with an additive base, and also require more consumer care while using them, but in the long run, starch based bags take less time to decompose (up to 180 days) while additive based bags may takea couple of years (up to 2 yrs) and have the downside of being made from petrochemicals as well as releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.

In the end, the compostable bags you choose need to be right to fit your needs, only you know how green you can be…

Good list of current “approved” bags at:
BPI World Approved Products

The change occurs at a moment that being Green is not just a Canadian issue, but also one for us here in the USA.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007 marked a change over from polystyrene containers to containers and lids made from corn and sugar cane.

Quote:

“We have heard a lot of feedback from students about Styrofoam, about unenvironmentally friendly products on campus. It’s kind of a hot topic these days,” University of Manitoba Students Union vice-president Amanda Jonson said.

“But the No. 1 reason is just to take a leading step and say we are at least trying to take an initiative and be more environmentally responsible here on campus. And hopefully other people will catch on,not only on campus, but other food service options, other options all across the city and across Manitoba.”

With only a 0.25$ environmental levy per package, its a small fee for a campus that already has a composting program; just throw the empty container in the recycling bin and UMREG (on-campus recycling group) will make sure it is properly composted instead of landfilled.

Degrees Diner has boosted the motivation of not just those on-campus, but those off-campus will follow in their lead, as they notice what a difference being a little ethical means to their clients.

One thing is for sure, we can certainly expect something from this, and we can see how important composting is becoming to the mainstream commercial food industry and to our country’s elite of tomorrow.

The compostable biodegradable packaging in Manitoba is just one more example of a trend that is hitting Northern America on full; soon we will see even the USA with news like this, very soon.

As our nation becomes ever more sustainable and with the invent of biodegradable packaging, so does the world around us.

The dependence upon fossil fuels becomes less and less a concern now that biodegradable packaging is a part of our world economy; being without such an industry would cost us dearly in hygiene, energy and practicality.

NatureWorksLLC.com offers a solution to the worlds packaging need that is not only sustainable, but is the world leader in biopolymers for the food industry.

The project was first established in 1997 and the company was finally established in 2000, as a global stand-alone organization wholly owned by Cargill, with more than 200 employees, is a several hundred million dollar investment with a 300,000,000 lbs polymer capacity.

NatureWorksLLC is dedicated to manufacturing a plastic that not only costs the same as traditional fossil fuel based plastics but also, is just as useful if not more so and environmentally friendly with a rapid return to the environment.

Made from 100% corn crop, NatureWorksLLCs biodegradable plastics use carbon that is produced through the process of photosynthesis.

Instead of taking 100 million years to produce the base product for plastic, NatureWorksLLC takes only 100 days to produce a resource that is renewable and plentiful enough to stimulate our nations economy.

Two majorbiodegradable packaging types are developed by NatureWorksLLC, Nature Works PLA and Ingeo Fibers, which are part of the Smart Care Focus that uses thermoformed plastic parts in a more efficient way during handling at the factory, raising life expectancy and performance.

Nature Works PLA makes three different categories of biodegradable packaging:

Serviceware disposable Dixie cups, dishware, forks, knives and spoons that are used only once, then thrown away.
Rigid Containers precut salads, fruit, vegetables and convenience store and fast food restaurant bought fountain drink cups.
Bottles vinegar, water, milk, juice etc.

By using biodegradable packaging made from corn crops, Wal-Mart USA alone will save more than 800,000 gallons of gasoline per year or 13 million pounds of greenhouse gases that would otherwise be used to make disposable plastic packaging

Traditional non-biodegradable packaging takes more than 200 years to return to the earth and creates harmful greenhouse gases when burned.

Aside from Wal-Mart, Del Monte produce packaging has also been using this biodegradable packaging since 2005 and the rapid growth of investment in this green area has been increasing geometrically around the world in an almost equivalent fashion.

Marks and Spencer in the UK, DelHaize in Belgium, Iper in Italy and E-Mart in Korea, all creating triple digit growth in the plastic industry.

Consumers actually prefer buying a product that comes from Mother Natures renewable stock rather than something derived from fossil fuels.

With the best supply chains in North America, Europe and South East Asia, Natrual Works LLC has developed the worlds leader in biodegradable packaging that meets the markets current needs as well as the current prices at the same performance level as traditional non-biodegradable packaging.

While a peat pot may sit around for weeks at a time, it cant get wet or left outside in the weather or else it will quickly begin to decompose into soil matter, making watering itself a quick way to start the process.

Biodegradable pots on the other hand are wonderful for long-term usage as plastic pots, especially for seedlings.

Upon maturing to replanting stage biodegradable pots such as those made by Rosso’s International, can easily find their way directly into the soil.

Even if a pot is broken, split or cracked beyond use, no more worrying about how to recycle the plastic in an environmentally conscious manner.

Rosso’s products come in a wide range of colors, shapes and sizes to meet the same needs and aesthetic value as those proposed by traditional fossil fuel pots.

Dishware and pots made from the pulp of bamboo pulp as well as other agricultural residues such as corn pulp.

A stable and sustainable technology for a brighter human future. Biodegradable pots made by Rosso’s International, come with the very latest in modern technology and research, using only environmentally friendly production.

Bacteria, water and carbon dioxide do the composting of biodegradable pots within 6 months, they are 100% natural, hygienic, suitable for the use with foods, they can even withstand temperature of up to 180 Celsius, freeze proof as low as 40 Celsius, fully microwavable, acid, alkali and oil resistant, durable structure free of odors or poisons, with a 2 year shelf life.

Indoors, outdoors, plant nurseries, gardens, and anywhere you would like to have your growing environment more aesthetically pleasing as well as make a political statement about energy conservation, will do for Rosso’s biodegradable pots, longer lasting than peat pots which have always been biodegradable, but never last this long.