When John Wesley Hyatt invented the first synthetic polymer in 1869, his invention was meant to stop the slaughter of elephants and tortoises for ivory and tortoiseshell. Leo Baekeland developed Bakelite, a synthetic plastic, several years later in 1907. This was the start of the world’s increased consumption of plastic goods.
The problem is that plastic has caused harm for decades. The convenience of plastic grocery bags, single-use water bottles, and even plastic straws has created a wealth of problems on land, in the air, and in the water. Oceans are littered with plastic trash that tangles on fins, or in one well-known case, a straw ended up in a sea turtle’s nasal passage.
When worn or broken plastic items end up in landfills, they don’t break down. The pieces fragment and grow smaller over decades and centuries. It can take plastic waste up to 500 years to break down. During that time, microplastics are released.
To be kinder to the environment, people are shifting toward compostable products. Are they better? The reality is that they’re not always as eco-friendly as you might be led to believe.
What Goes Into Manufacturing “Compostable” Products
Several items are used to make compostable products. One of the most common is bioplastic. Unlike traditional plastic made from petroleum, a fossil fuel, bioplastics come from plants, often corn, sugar, and tapioca.
The materials used to create bio-plastic are fermented and then polymerized into a resin material used to make cups, lids, straws, and utensils. They may be extruded or used in injection molding to make specific items.
Bioplastic cannot be recycled. It had to go into compost or a landfill. Conventional plastics may or may not be recycled. It’s usually down to the facilities in your area and what they take for recyclables. Composting bioplastics can impact the environment.
You also have compostable products made from plant fibers, such as bamboo, hemp, and wheat. They’re mashed into a pulp and then shaped into bowls, plates, and trays. Again, these are composted rather than recycled, and that can impact the environment.
Other compostable materials that are used frequently are:
• Cornstarch• Cotton
• Polyhydroxyalkanoates/PHA (Produced through bacterial fermentation.)
• Potato starch
Several Problems Arise With Compostable Products in Landfills
Compostable packaging doesn’t just dissolve. Most were designed to be composted in a specific environment where specific conditions are met. Temperatures must remain above 140ºF, which isn’t easy to achieve in a home compost pile or a landfill.
Temperatures that are lower than this cannot break down the molecules effectively. When you have items sitting and very slowly breaking down, it creates several problems.
1. Methane
Compostable items give you a false sense of security. They compost, so they have no impact on the environment. That’s not true. Many of these items end up in the landfill. You can’t recycle them, and not everyone has the space for outdoor composting systems. Even if you do, the food scraps on compostable plates and bowls may not be suitable for compost used in a vegetable garden.
When you send compostable items to a landfill, the environment becomes oxygen-poor (anaerobic). Because it’s buried and has little exposure to oxygen, it produces methane as it decomposes. That methane enters the atmosphere, where it’s a problematic greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, leading to global warming.
To counteract that, they need to be composted in an oxygen-rich environment, such as a backyard compost pile that you regularly turn to introduce oxygen. However, a residential compost pile often fails to reach the temperatures needed to break down compostable bowls, plates, cups, etc., and it takes much longer.
As the items very slowly break down, you have items like compostable plastic bags that can wrap around something’s neck or be eaten by a bird, causing blockages. Care is needed to ensure compostable items are composted correctly. That leads to the next issue.
2. Inadequate Infrastructure
Industrial compost centers are not readily available in every district. Because of that, few municipalities accept compostable products in curbside recycling. People put them into their bins anyway.
Once they’re at a recycling facility, they’re rejected. If a truckload has too many rejected items, it’s often easier to send the entire load to the landfill than to painstakingly separate the items that are recyclable from those that are not.
That’s also a problem because PET and PLA cups are hard to tell apart. Infrared sorters are the best way to distinguish them. That equipment is costly, and smaller districts may not be able to add it without increasing taxes or facility fees.
3. Forever Chemicals
If you are in a district with industrial composting, there’s one more issue. It’s getting better, but some items still contain PFAs. PFAs block grease and water, which helps ensure items can be recycled, but PFAs are “forever chemicals.” Once they’re in your compost, you’re spreading forever chemicals onto agricultural fields and gardens. They do not break down.
You now have forever chemicals in the soil you’re using to grow food. PFAs end up in the foods people eat. They also make their way into streams and ponds around the fields, which carry them to rivers, lakes, and the ocean.
4. Manufacturing’s Impact
To get the compostable products you’re purchasing, they have to be manufactured. This means using energy to produce all of these items. High temperatures needed to make the materials pliable lead to some fumes. The facility’s filtration system may adequately capture those fumes, but some may still escape into the air.
Once manufactured, the items are shipped to warehouses and retailers, meaning trucks are on the road, burning gas and diesel, which contribute to pollution. You also have all of the skids, plastic wrap, boxes, and other packaging that keep the items safe during transportation. That adds to the waste stream and the environmental impact.
The False Comfort in “Earth-Friendly” Products
Earth-friendly products aren’t the instant fix for saving the world. They may help, but they don’t address the throwaway culture that has developed over several decades. Instead of fixing items or finding new uses for them, people tend to throw things out after buying new ones.
Ideally, you want to stop buying disposable items. Shift to a “reduce-and-reuse” mindset. Lower the demand for new items by using what you have.
The best way to protect the world is to manage what you consume. Compostable isn’t a cure-all for ending reliance on plastics. The best option is to embrace items you can reuse repeatedly.
Refillable water bottles, picnic plates you bring home and wash, and reusable metal straws are better for the environment than compostable bags, plates, bowls, and straws. Reusable shopping bags that you toss in the wash to clean and sterilize between shopping trips are better. And make sure you are recycling items properly.
Check your local guides for what you can and cannot recycle in your curbside bin. Use Recycle Nation’s online tool to find where to bring items you cannot recycle at the curb. The more you properly recycle, the better it is for the world.
