These New Compostable Sandwich Baggies Are Replacing My Plastic Ones for Good

Food prep, work lunches, storage—they’re that durable.
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HoldOn baggie holding celery

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Why should kids get all the clean notebooks, new backpacks, and fresh pens? As fall approaches and back–to-school season arrives, this week we’re rounding up our favorite office items that will give your desk or WFH space new life.

Every Sunday, I tote my food scraps—tied up neatly in bags—over to the drop-off at my neighborhood farmers’ market. It brings me joy. It makes me feel like I’m a part of my community, and it also keeps my main trash container from smelling horrible during summer’s peak months. 

But my green-tinted compostable bags? They’re flimsy and oftentimes leak or disintegrate before I can move my scraps to the freezer, where they sit until Sunday. So hearing about a compostable sandwich bag with a zip made me side-eye. How could an environmentally friendly bag both zip and be sturdy enough to tote my sandwiches to work and corral loose household items?

Toddler holding baggie with celery
Courtesy of HoldOn Bags

I stand corrected—it can be done. HoldOn, a new company out of Los Angeles, makes all kinds of compost-friendly bags, from trash bags to gallon zip-seal baggies, out of earth-friendly and nontoxic materials like cornstarch, so that when your trash breaks down, there isn’t a plastic casing left over. And while I have been truly impressed with everything in the lineup, the sandwich baggie is the clear winner. 

The zip-seal sandwich bags, which come in a pack of 100 for $13, are surprisingly tough. The closure is strong, and neither mini pretzels nor loose AAA batteries have poked through the film, even when the bag has been rattling around in my purse all day. Normally I’m a Stasher obsessive (and still am), but HoldOns come in handy when I need a slimmer pouch or a piping bag, like when I filled squash blossoms with herbed ricotta a couple of Sundays ago. 

But truly, the best part is knowing that I’m not loading up on single-use plastics by having them in my home. On my next flight, I’ll be stowing my toiletries into a HoldOn sandwich bag, and when friends want leftovers, that’s how they’ll be toting them. And I can’t wait to throw my used ones in the Sunday compost pile. 

Compostable Zipseal Sandwich Bags (100 pack)

Hold On
$13

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Julie Vadnal Avatar

Julie Vadnal

Deputy Editor

Julie Vadnal is deputy editor of Domino. She edits and writes stories about shopping for new and vintage furniture, covers new products (and the tastemakers who love them), and tours the homes of cool creatives. She lives in Brooklyn.