The following is my opinion on the three commonly available compost bags.
So you all know by now that I’m a bit of a zero waste nerd.
I did a comparison of the three most commonly available to me kitchen compost collector bags, the approximately 3 gallon size.
EcoSafe is my favorite. It has give to tie a knot, shape in the Collector, and fits best in grooves on the City of Austin’s Kitchen Compost Collector. The bag stays in place better than BioBag and EcoGuard. At first I thought it would be the worst because it looks so big and doesn’t have a gather at the bottom, but now I think the square shape helps it stay in place better.
The City of Austin provides BioBag at its events. This bag is the softer green color. It has give to tie a knot, not too much extra material and mostly stays in the grooves. BioBag is available at most natural food stores and on My favorite is EcoSafe. This bag is the army green color. These give to knot easily, there isn’t extra material, and they stay in the grooves the best. HEB sells these by the zip-top bags. They’re also available on EcoGuard is the white bag. These can knot but there isn’t as much give as the other two mentioned here, there isn’t extra material, and they don’t stay in the grooves as well as the other two. These are from Costco. I haven’t noticed a difference in the the amount of moisture that may or may not seep out of the bags (moisture depends on what you put in the bags). I take my kitchen compost collector bag out every other day. Smell doesn’t differ either. Preference is mostly going to be on how important the bag staying in the grooves is to you, and how much you want to put in the bag before you knot the bag, if you knot it. This article only addresses the BPI certified compost bags. EcoSafe also come in 33/30 gallons if you want to line your compost cart with one. Paper lunch bags could be used for the kitchen compost collector and lawn and leaf bags could be used in the compost cart. You could also go au natural and just rinse everything, though in my experience it is hard to reach into the bottom of the compost cart to scrub well, but I’m short. I don’t freeze my bags or transfer freezer materials to a compost bag the night before or morning of so I can’t say how these hold up for frozen materials. I hope this is helpful! No bag performed poorly if you want to experiment for yourself! Let me know how it goes!
