While browsing the pet store the other day I picked up some refill doggie bags (and I’m not talking the kind of doggie bag you get in a restaurant) for our little Bags on Board dispenser. I was pleased to see that these bags were now “100% Biodegradable”. It wasn’t until I got home with them that I realized this was “except as defined by California”. And this is a pity, because Jackson poops almost exclusively in California.
Looking now, their website doesn’t actually mention the biodegradable thing (although you can see the little red stickers, and in fact these stickers don’t have that little disclaimer).
It turns out that this is not the fault of slacking Californian anaerobes, but legislation passed recently by the California Assembly which apparently is the first piece of legislation anywhere to put legal limits on the use of the term “biodegradable”. According to California, something is biodegradable if the ASTM Standard Specification for Compostable Plastics says it is. Unfortunately it costs $30 find out what that says.
