What should I do with my compostable cup?

You go to a cafe to buy your lunch, and the container looks like plastic, but the staff tell you it’s made from compostable materials. This is great news, and it makes you feel good right. This little cafe is supplying you with sustainable materials, which must be good for the environment - great. Unfortunatly it is a little more complex than that. 

So the business owner is paying more than £20 a case extra for these containers (at the very least), and they think they are doing their bit for the environment, but they've not thought about the journey that cup will take and where it will end up. The harsh reality is that it will likely end up in land fill, where it will not compost, it will just leak methane like all the other rubbish in that big pile, because compostable packaging only composts in industrial composting sites provided by the council. Unfortunately, no town/city centres actually have 'Industrial Composting Bins' just general waste which is where most... if not all of this packaging goes. That's a hole in the thought process isn't it? So why are we doing this... it's really simple ... great intentions and not enough awareness. 

So what do you do then? 

 So, you have your lunch, but then what? Should you throw the box into the recycling? Or perhaps it belongs in the food waste recycling bin…? Throwing it in with the recycling or into the food waste bin would seem like the obvious thing to do, but actually, it shouldn’t go into either.

Companies today are more socially responsible and conscious of their environmental footprint than ever before. It’s exciting and uplifting to see busiesses taking more responsibility for their actions, but it can also backfire and cause more problems, such as putting products out there that can’t be recycled easily, confusing customers at best, and misleading them at worst.

So compostable and biodegradable – do they mean the same thing? Although they are often used interchangeably, they actually mean slightly different things.

What does biodegradable mean?

Biodegradable means that a product can break down within the environment with the help of bacteria and other living organisms - over an unspecified amount of time. However, most things will biodegrade eventually, and some things that do break down in the environment, will do it harm - but anything can claim to be biodegradable, if it breaks down into smaller pieces - whether it takes 10 years or 1000 years - it can still claim biodegradability.

For example, some plastic bags can biodegrade into tiny pieces in around 20 years, but these microplastics are harmful to the environment. Plastics which break down in natural environments can also affect ecosystems and be eaten by animals. We've all seen the very depressing photos of sea life affected by plastics - which can claim to be biodegradable!

The term ‘biodegradable’ is often misused and applied to a broad range of different materials. Without a specified environment and time frame, the term is very vague, because a biodegradable product may biodegrade in some environments and not in others. Likewise, a coffee cup that takes 30 years to break down and an apple which takes 1 month, could both be described as biodegradable.

If plastic is biodegradable, it can’t be recycled and you shouldn’t throw it in your recycling bin at home or at work. Even though it looks the same as a ‘normal’ plastic, the chemical composition is different, and it can’t be processed using the same technology. Don’t put it in your food waste recycling bin either, or your compost heap if you have one, as biodegradable products only break down under intense heat.

What to do then? Well, lots of cafes or workplace canteens that use biodegradable products will have special collection bins for these, so throw them in there. If you don’t have access to this sort of collection, throw it in your rubbish bin - which just defeats the entire purpose and intention of buying a more expensive container for your takeaway food! 

What does compostable mean?

If something is compostable, it means it’s made from materials which will break down completely into non-toxic components that won’t harm the environment, given the right conditions. If a product is labelled ‘compostable’, this means it can be composted industrially, and if it’s labelled ‘home compostable’ it means you can throw it into your home compost heap (but not into your food waste recycling bin!)

For something to be legally labelled compostable, it has to have been certified to break down in industrial (council) composting facilities within 180 days.

Similarly to biodegradable items, you can’t recycle compostable items, so if you don’t have access to a compostables bin at work or where you bought your item from, throw it into your rubbish bin - again defeating the objective. 

So if you're feeling duped, you're not alone. Unless the cafe has a compostable rubbish service, it is absolutely pointless to provide compostable takeaway disposables. For people who want to grab their food and go, being provided with compostable takeaway packaging will only create the same greenhouse gases as non compostable items when thrown in general waste. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this! 

What can you do? Speak to your council about providing compostable bins for you to use. Speak to yout employer about providing compostable bins - where the rubbish is taken to the council's industrial composting disposal service or... speak to the cafe owner about the provision of a compostable rubbish bin provided on site... if you are very lucky they will have one.... but I've found 9 out of 10 do not, because no one has thought about the life cycle of this little cup that has been made and bought with the best of intentions... and noone is educating about this....until now of course!