Compostable bag?

[gailmom.livejournal.com]

Sunchips has this "greening the world" thing going on. They are very proud of their extra crinkly bag, because it's "100% compostable".

I'm not sure what sort of composting they used to make this claim, but I use chickens.

My chickens are incredible composters. Because they are constantly moving the compost, while pooping nitrogen all over it, they have managed to break down every organic material I have thrown at them. I put things in there you are never supposed to compost. Kitchen scraps last a week (what doesn't get eaten), except for orange peel, which takes a month, and bone, which takes three months to break down enough that you have to get seriously intimate to tell what it is, but only 6 weeks to start to show signs of decomposition.

They have managed to break down hair, dryer lint, old rags and clothing fabric etc that can't be salvaged, they even are most of the way through breaking down a futon pad (minus the stryrofoam. If it is not plastic or metal, I throw it in there. My junk mail goes in their nest box first, then into the pen, weeds from the yard, weeds and clippings from other peoples yards, as many leaves as I can find on the street....it all goes in and I have NEVER in the year and a half I've had chickens, had to empty the pen. It never fills up, it's always a couple inches, at most, above the hard part of Texas soil.

My point? Super efficient composters.

So I put the chip bag in there. Ever put a layer of leaves on it to get it attention. I'm about to add more leaves because they have broken down everything in their pen, and are down to just above base soil level again....

...but before i do, I picked up the "compostable" sun chips bag pieces.

That's right, six weeks it has been in there, and the pieces are big enough I can pick them all up....and is that, a plastic lining under the foil type surface layer? The bag is almost all there, front and back. There is one corner I can't find, but I didn't look hard.

This is garbage, pure and simple. I'm going to keep letting them try, unless the plastic bits start breaking off and threatening my chickens, but you can bet I won't be buying the chips again, and Sunchips will be getting an email from me...with pictorial evidence.

I am not impressed with their lies....or, at best, their misleading advertising. Click pic to see larger:



and no, that isn't a missing corner down at the bottom, that's chicken poop.

I am not impressed, Sunchips.

ETA: and despite the new info I'm getting, which is totally fascinating, thanks, ya'll!...further research into it online is not making me think it's any better for the environment (or us) than any other plastic.