The Red, White, and Green

It seems like compostable packaging is all the rage right now, even though I would wager that the majority of Americans don’t even know what composting is. (To wit: Los Angeles’ largely ignored green bins.) Now, Frito-Lay is the latest company to jump on the biodegradable bandwagon, with the unveiling of SunChips‘ completely compostable snack food bag. It’ll be on Canadian grocery store shelves next month, and here in the US just in time for Earth Day 2010.

WATCH:

[Watch video on YouTube]

Of course, as with the biodegradable hotel key cards I profiled in January, you can’t just polish off a bag of Harvest Cheddar chips, toss it in the trash, and think you’ve done your part for the planet — these bags have to be placed in a hot compost pile or bin to break down in the estimated 12-16 weeks.

And also like the hotel key cards, these SunChips bags are made from Ingeo, a plant-based plastic manufactured by NatureWorks. While there’s been some controversy as to whether or not plant-based plastics do more harm than good (once you factor in the possibly genetically modified corn used to make these biopolymers — not to mention the pesticides and fertilizers used to grow the corn), NatureWorks has said it remains committed to sustainability, which you can read more about here.

We could debate for days as to whether these biodegradable bags will have a measurable impact on carbon emissions, but I think the greatest boon to the environment won’t be the bag itself; it’ll be the awareness this campaign brings to the general public about composting and why it’s so important. And that, in my opinion, is pretty cool.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Learn how to compost.

Related posts:
The Dasani PlantBottle: Can you feel less guilty about drinking bottled water?
Green Genius: Biodegradable trash bags that REALLY biodegrade

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