helping plants grow

Our bags need to go to a commercial composting facility and are not suitable for home composting. Mail in your compostable Off The Eaten Path bags and TerraCycle will take care of it for you. Or, you can use the searchable map below to find a drop-off location near you! If you don’t have access to either of these options, the bags should be discarded in the garbage and not recycled.

Off The Eaten Path’s compostable bags are certified compostable in industrial facilities by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI). The materials for these bags produce 60% lower greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) than non-compostable snack bags and 48% less energy is used to create the materials for the bags.

No, currently only specially marked compostable versions of our Chickpea Veggie Crisps and Veggie Crisps bags will break down at a commercial composting facility. The bags are currently available in Whole Foods and other select retailers. The bags are not suitable for home composting.

The Polylactic Acid (PLA) used in our bags helps make them commercially compostable and is derived primarily from corn and/or sugarcane. Raw material production for these films produces approximately 60% lower greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) than traditional snack bags.

Compostable means that an item will break down into usable compost within a certain amount of time under specific conditions. For example, natural materials like vegetable peels, grass clippings, and specially designed items like Off The Eaten Path compostable snack bags break down into compost that can enrich soil. Our bags are Biodegradable Products Institute certified and meet American Society of Testing Materials (ASTM) D6400 standards.

The bags are designed for industrial composting facilities which use higher levels of heat and moisture than most home compost setups and can only be composted in industrial facilities or through our mail-in program to ensure they will break down completely.

No, this bag can’t be recycled. Today, most snack bags are made of flexible film that’s not recyclable, so we developed an bag that can be commercially composted. If you don’t have access to any of our composting options, please dispose of the chip bag in the garbage.

We’re conserving resources by making these bags mostly from plants like corn and sugar cane. They have a lower carbon footprint than conventional snack bags and use less energy to produce. And sending our compostable bags to an industrial facility keeps them out of landfills — a small step towards reducing waste.

Off The Eaten Path has partnered with TerraCycle for the collection of its PLA pilot bags, which allows consumers to ship back bags to be industrially composted. For every bag returned to TerraCycle, Off The Eaten Path will donate $1 to the Ocean Conservancy, up to $192,000.

Yes, this bag was intentionally designed to protect the flavor, freshness and quality of the delicious Off The Eaten Path crisps inside. It is only meant to start biodegrading under specific composting conditions after you’re done eating your snack.

Yes, this packaging is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to safely protect your snack.

No, it will not dissolve in your pantry. This bag is designed to break down in industrial composting facilities, which have much higher levels of humidity and heat than a standard pantry.

Industrial composting facilities (also known as commercial or municipal composting facilities) are professional waste processing facilities that convert organic waste (like food waste, yard waste and specially designed items like Off The Eaten Path’s compostable snack bags) into high quality compost, which can be used for gardening and agriculture. These facilities use higher levels of heat and moisture than an average home compost pile. Our packaging is certified industrial compostable by the Biodegradable Products Institute and should be processed in an industrial compost facility.

Off The Eaten Path wants to deliver on a vision of a world where plastics need never become waste. That includes improving our snack packaging. In 2021, we are introducing comercially compostable packaging on select products and in select retailers. Our goal is to apply those learnings to other Off The Eaten Path products in the coming years.

Yes, we work carefully with our suppliers to ensure the corn and canola used to create our compostable packaging are sourced sustainably and will not take away from food-grade crops.

These bags will fully degrade in industrial composting conditions in approximately 12 weeks.

This packaging may sound/feel a little different than other chip bags because it is made of different materials which make it compostable in industrial facilities.  Rest assured, the compostable bags are designed to protect the flavor, freshness, and quality of the delicious Off The Eaten Path crisps inside as well as our other packaging does.

Visit Ocean Conservancy’s Action Page to learn what you can do!