Can I use biodegradable dog poo bags as food waste bags?

[roses2]

As title - are they the same?? The dog poo bags are a lot cheaper than the food waste bags. Can I just these them and put them in my food waste bin, which the council collect each week?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yingdelai-Dog-Poo-Bags-Biodegradable/dp/B07Y4W9Q7G/ref=sr_1_5?crid=ZRISV9IGG47L&keywords=biodegradable%2Bdog%2Bpoop%2Bbags&qid=1706367751&sprefix=biodegradeable%2Bdog%2Bpoo%2Caps%2C77&sr=8-5&th=1

I once put some food waste into a biodegradable shopping bag and the council wouldn’t take it.

Must depend where you are. I usually pack mine in newspaper, fish and chip shop style. For larger moister quantities, I use biodegradable magazine wrappers or on occasion have used a supermarket carrier sized bag labelled as biodegradable. Never had an issue.

We're told not to use biodegradable bags as they are difficult to separate out as they disintegrate. Our council suggest using any other kind of plastic bag, for instance bread bags, so I'd reuse things like that, if you can?

Normal plastic bags don't break down so doesn't that mean they don't recycle the food waste??

Now that I've looked at the council website I think I have an answer - as long as the bags are "EN13432" then they are ok.

The council guidelines are as follows:
You can wrap your food waste in kitchen caddy liners made of corn starch, which comply with environmental regulation EN13432, or newspaper, paper (including junk mail) or paper bags. Please don’t use plastic bags or the entire vehicle load of food waste may be rejected by the facility and sent to landfill.

Depends on your council. Ours now let us use regular carrier bags.

Just before anyone comes at me to say I can't!

I would assume they would have to be compostable.

my council gives you free food waste bags. You can get them from a tip or if tie a food waste bag to the outdoor food bin, then the bin men leave another roll of them for you.

Biodegradable is not the same as compostable.

Biodegradable plastics often just break down into smaller plastic particles, not something wanted in compost! They also require quite specific conditions to degrade (light and air).

It sounds like it varies a lot between councils and how they handle the food waste before it goes to be processed. Our food waste at work used to be composted, but now it goes for anaerobic digestion so we can't put compostable non-food stuff in any more.

Glad you've found the answer to your question, OP!

You have said that doggy bags are a LOT cheaper than food waste bags, but I bought 240 bags on Amazon for £8.99, so slightly dearer, but not massively. 240 bags will last me about two years, so I would only save a couple of quid a year if I chose to use doggy bags.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BYJT3BQ6

Those are not compostable food waste bags. They're just very cheap thin plastic bin liners (I know because I bought some!).

Our food waste just goes to landfill. Or you can put fruit and veg in the garden bin but that's only emptied for a third of the year.

Thanks @PeppermintParty !

@DrSpartacular the webpage says "degradable made from corn materials" which my council website say is ok. Did you buy the exact same bag?

As I said, degradable is not the same as compostable. According to the Amazon listing the ones you've linked are degradable in 18 months. It's green-washing.

I work in waste. If you are going to use the compostable bags please don’t knot them. The knot takes a long time to compost and then composters start refusing to take them 🙏

Same as here in West Oxfordshire, they now have a system to remove plastic packaging.

Great for those last couple sausages OH puts in a plastic bag and forgets about for a week

If I were a bag, I'd rather be full of food waste than full of dog shit. But this probably doesn't help you!

I thought the two were more or less the same. When I'm taking the dog out I often grab a handful of what I think are poo bags to find out they're caddy liners. Aren't coop carriers the same as well?

i use them in the summer as they are smaller so I have to change them more

Council info here says to knot securely…

Your post has made me go and look at my council’s website and they say only compostable bags which we can get free from the library. So depends on one’s council it seems.

Typical muddied messaging that leaves people bewildered. I still know people that put anything plastic in the recycling, and can't ever be arsed to clean or rinse anything.

The fact it varies so much doesn’t help.
I moved and got a letter threatening to fine me because I’d put the recycling in the wrong bin - it was the same colour as the recycle bin at my old home so didn’t think it would be different.

Yes, I did buy those ones. I also knot them once full, as I didn't know you weren't supposed to do that.

My council's website says you can use a plastic or biodegradable bag to line the caddy. It doesn't say to not tie a knot in the bag, so unless they make it clear, I will continue to knot them.

I guess there are different rules for different local authorities.