Compostable Jewelry Packaging – reducing our need for plastic bit by bit — Sharon Z Jewelry

So when I found a new packaging company that offered small, compostable baggies and other shipping supplies, I was intrigued. 

Baggies are a necessity – they store your finished inventory without scratching, they protect silver pieces from tarnishing and they make it easy to see your inventory at a glance, or maintain labels. Up until now, most of our options have been limited – plastic, a so-called biodegradable plastic* or glassine.

Plastic baggies have one advantage in that they can be reused an infinite number of times, but still – the earth doesn’t need more plastic. Compostable bags won’t be as likely to last long, but they will decompose in home compost systems. 

In the interest of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, I decided to order some compostable bags from betterpackaging.com – they are, to the best of my knowledge, the only compostable baggies that come in small enough sizes to be useful to jewelry makers (if you know of other sources, please drop them in the comments). According to their description, these are compostable in your own home composter. I only have municipal compost collection, but I am likely to continue to use and reuse until they fall apart.