BIODEGRADABLE POLY GARMENT BAGS
Every JAGGAD garment is shipped from the factory in biodegradable poly bags.
What are they made of?
PLA – Thermoplastic aliphatic polyester derived from renewable biomass, typically from fermented plant starch such as corn, cassava, sugarcane or sugar beet pulp.
PBAT - While PBAT is incredibly biodegradable and will decompose in home compost leaving no toxic residues; it is currently partly derived from petrochemicals.
This means it’s not renewable unfortunately. Interestingly, it is PBAT that is added to make the product degrade quickly enough to meet the home composability criteria.
There are no bio-based plastics suitable for making POLY bags that do not have a binding agent like PBAT in them. Unfortunately, when it comes to plant-based inputs there is a trade-off between renewability and composability – the higher the % renewable, plant-based components the slower it is to compost!
How do we compost them?
Ideally, these should be sent to composting facilities to be properly broken down and composted.
What happens if they end up in landfill?
The best part is that they still break down (with no waste and no methane production) in landfill. It takes about 2 years for these bags to breakdown. In contrast, traditional plastic bags take 400 years or more to break down and release deadly methane gas into the atmosphere.