COMPOSTING WINDWARD BAGS

Over the last several weeks, we’ve started composting our own Windward bags! We tend not to dip into our own jerky supply but we made an exception for the sake of this blog. You’ve already heard about our goals for sustainability, but we’ve gotten a few questions regarding, “What exactly do we do with our bags once we finish the jerky?”

The most eco-friendly way to dispose of your Windward bags is through a personal compost. We won’t go too far into how to start a compost or the best uses of one, for that we’ll link a few resources we used at the end of this blog post. 

What we want to focus on is what happens to our packaging when it’s properly composted and what you can expect. To incorporate Windward packaging into a compost we recommend utilizing the bags as part of your dried composting material.

Below are a few photos of what happens to our eco-friendly packaging after 10 weeks of home composting:

(Original Starting Point)

(Week 6)

(Week 10)

Over the course of the last 10 weeks our packaging has dropped from 14g to 10g in weight, a drop of about 29%. The entire outside print layer has dissolved into the compost and, once dried, the interior layer has started to shrivel and condense in volume. We expect there to be a bit more breakdown over the course of the next few weeks as the very bottom layer of the packaging sheds its print layer and the remaining plastic continues to decrease in volume.

Once the bags go through this process and you’re left with only a portion of the interior plastic layer then you would dispose of the remaining material in the regular trash. Our packaging supplier is currently working on a 100% compostable packaging; once that is achieved we fully intend on updating our bags!

How and Why to Compost:

https://learn.eartheasy.com/guides/composting/

https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828918397/how-to-compost-at-home