Hey earth muffins! Plastic Free July is just around the corner! Every year this challenge comes around, I try to pick an area of my house to focus on in terms of making eco swaps. If you are new to sustainable living, I suggest tackling your kitchen this year! A great way to zero waste your kitchen and reduce single use plastic is to switch to HoldOn bags. These bags are compostable and plastic-free… And they were kind enough to send me some to try out! 🎉 Let’s jump into a full HoldOn review.
What I Love About HoldOn
First off, I love that these bags are sustainable! If you are trying to break the plastic habit, this is the perfect way to swap out your typical garbage bag. Instead of letting a plastic bag rot in the landfill for years, these will break down in a matter of weeks. 😍 You can even toss them directly into the compost bin (if the contents are also biodegradable). The sustainable values of HoldOn is also evident in their packaging. The box is sized to fit the contents perfectly and everything is made of cardboard. Only one piece of tape was used on the package – and it was paper tape!
Another positive of HoldOn is that their bags come in a bunch of different sizes. I was sent the Household Staples set which includes 40 thirteen gallon trash bags, 50 four gallon trash bags, 25 gallon zip bags, and 100 sandwich bags. You can obviously just buy the sizes that you need around your house; I use the large trash bags for my kitchen, the smaller bags for my bathroom, and the baggies as options for packing my lunch to work each day!
So, Does a Compostable Bag Work?
From what I’ve tried out so far, HoldOn bags work great! The bag itself is thick, and I haven’t had any issue with it ripping to include in this HoldOn review. Because it is made of ingredients like polybutylene adipate terephthalate and cornstarch, the bags also don’t feel like a typical trash bag. It almost has a vinyl feeling in my opinion, which is much more pleasant than plastic that sticks to your hands. While I haven’t been able to see if they actually break down in the compost bin yet, I can’t wait to see the results in a couple weeks!
While this doesn’t really impact if they work as trash bags, I also want to mention that I love the colors and print on the bags. These bags definitely work as an eco-friendly conversation starter! The green color really emphasizes the sustainable nature of the products. The slogans of the brand are witty and get you thinking about plastic from the time you get the box in the mail to using them around the house. I’m sure I will get lots of questions about them from visitors in my house too!
What Could Be Improved
Like I mention in all my reviews, the price of these bags is slightly higher than “normal” plastic bags. The trash bags range from $13 – $26 while the zip bags retail for $10 – $15. Not really that much higher (especially with all the inflation right now); and, don’t forget that you are buying a better product for Mother Earth! 🌎 ❤️
The last thing I wanted to say in this HoldOn review is that the bags smell a bit funky in the box… But, I personally think plastic trash bags smell even worse. We all know the smell of a plastic trash bag – these also have a scent from the biodegradable ingredients they are made with. However, once you put the bag into the trash can I haven’t had any issues with it smelling.
Overall, I am in love with these HoldOn bags! It is a great idea to have a bag that will break down in your backyard compost as well as biodegrade quickly in a landfill. Truly a win-win for every level of environmentalist! If you are interested in these bags, I would definitely recommend checking out the HoldOn website. How do you feel about compostable bags? Comment below if you have tried these out before!
Love,
Jenna ♥
These sound fantastic! My husband and I were talking about making the switch to compostable bags the other day, so I will look into these more. Thanks!
I’m very eager to see your update on how long it takes for the bag to break down in your compost bin at home! My own experiments with plant-based plastics have been very discouraging. It’s my understanding that nothing biodegrades rapidly in landfill, so biodegradable materials really require composting to realize environmental benefits, and many Americans don’t have access to professional high-temperature composting that can break down plant-based plastics. But maybe this is a new type that degrades faster, so please share updates!
In my house, we compost as much as possible, recycle (straight into the city bin, without bags) as much as possible, and then what’s left as garbage goes out in a single 13-gallon bag per week. We buy bags made from 100% recycled plastic–it is going to the landfill forever, yes, but at least it isn’t virgin material doing that, and buying these creates demand for recycled plastic.
It really helped when you said that bags that are made from polybutylene adipate terephthalate and cornstarch don’t feel like the typical trash bag that be used and they feel like vinyl. I guess we should look for wholesale biodegradable plastic bags that are made from those materials if we want to start changing our lifestyle to become more sustainable. As long as it has been found to be effective, we will gladly invest in items that we should have in our home to reduce our wastes that are going to the landfills.