How do I dispose trash without using plastic bags?

Question

Everyday, we dispose of our trash using plastic bags. This prevents the trash (especially liquids) from leaking out and contaminating our garbage disposal systems. Obviously, things such as paper bags can't be used for liquids, and cloth bags may smell. So is there still a way to dispose trash without using plastic bags?

I live in Singapore and most of the people here live in high rise apartments. Usually, we throw our trash (using plastic bags) into a central refuse chute in the building. The trash is then loaded on to a truck to be sent to an incineration plant.

Answer 1

Don't throw out water!

Firstoff, you really need to not throw out liquids. Liquids should go down the sink, (unless they are non-water non-biological). Water based liquids are very heavy and add a lot of mass to the waste stream.

Water based liquids are particularly bad news when incinerating. Most trash will burn exothermically, meaning the incinerator only has to use fossil fuels to start the trash stream burning; once lit, the incinerator is sustained by the burning of the trash itself. Water is a different deal. Water does not burn, and every kilogram (pound) of water requires 349,000 joules (150 BTU) to warm it to boiling, and 2,260,000 joules (970 BTU) to boil it away, so that means they have to use a stupid amount of fossil fuel simply to boil away the water.

(the units in parentheses are the imperial version of that data; I am not saying 1kg=1lb nor 349kj=150 BTU).

It's worse. Water is a thermal moderator, i.e. it tends to absorb huge amounts of thermal energy while cooling things to 100C (212F) or below. So this is also cooling down the incinerator, and a cold-running incinerator runs dirty with incomplete combustion and throws a lot of HCs and particulates into the air. So to stay within EPA limits, the incinerator must crank up the burners, expending even more fossil fuel.

So if you have proper hygiene about your trash (throwing away basically dry stuff, using the sink drain for the wet), that removes the issue with paper bags.

Or have plastic bags just for the wet trash, and paper for all the dry.

Or consider non-fossil-fuel bags

Plastic is made from oil. Most plastics are made from petroleum (The Shah of Iran, very impressed with plastics manufacture, was astonished that we burned such a useful feedstock). Some bags are made out of organic oils, which works too. This "closes the carbon cycle", because you aren't digging up ancient carbon and adding it to the atmosphere, you are taking crop carbon that only came out of the atmosphere this year.

Answer 2

(I started to write a comment, but it is getting too long).

Sorry to say, but this question is not very relevant. Your trash seems to be an unsorted collection of different materials. That's why it is sent to an incinerator.

What type of bag you use has only a little environmental impact on the production side, and hardly any on the disposal side.

Reduce, reuse, recycle is the order of efficiency.

The best contribution you can make is keeping that mantra in mind:

• Limit the amount of waste you dispose of.
• That translates to: limit what you buy (don't forget second hand).
• If you can separate out some waste streams for recycling^* that would be nice as well.
• If you want to take this broader, start campaigning with your city for separating waste streams.

Once you no longer know how to reduce your footprint in those areas, you can spend time on thinking about bag types.

^{* In a broad sense, i.e. think about repairing and selling second hand.}