I struggle a lot with reducing plastic in my life. Most of us know that plastics made from fossil fuel are a major part of the mess humans have made of the Earth. They take a long time to break down (statistics I have read range from 1,000 years to 30,000 years and longer), they harm animal life in our oceans and on land, they break down into micro-plastics that are ending up everywhere, they are made from petroleum products that are a disaster to extract and to refine (and must be reduced) and are so cheap to produce now that they are ubiquitous in every part of life. Preparing for this article I found many examples of people reducing and even eliminating plastic from their lives, but in every case it is a great deal of work. This has been my experience as well.
I am still determined to reduce my use of plastics, but as anyone knows who has tried, it’s complicated. Further complicating my quest lately is the fact that our garbage company has recently quit accepting compostable products such as plates, cups, spoons and such. By doing this they are joining the majority of disposal companies in the USA who do not accept these materials. You can’t blame them, for if they are to receive these materials they have to have an expensive industrial composting system. And even if they have industrial composting as part of their operation, composable materials require very high temperature to decompose, come in different forms (which require different types of decomposition conditions) and are hard to sort. Some of the materials of composable products are decomposable in backyard compost, but it takes a long time.
I liked the option of using compostable products for such things as takeout during the pandemic and large family or social events where washing the dishes is onerous. Our church has been trying to reduce and reach net zero consumption and embraced compostables as a great solution to church dinners and coffee hour where no one wants to wash dishes anymore. This brings up another part of the problem: that paper and plastic single use containers have spoiled us and made us addicted to the ease of their disposal, but that’s another topic. My friend who works at a university’s Environmental Center is struggling as well because college events and dining halls are also trying to reduce their carbon footprint with compostables. The decision of our disposal company is upsetting many people in our community.
In researching this issue I learned that there are just a few basic forms of compostable dishware. Basgasse is sourced from the fibrous residue of sugar cane when made into sugar. It is made into paper with minimal processing. Bamboo compostables are made from the sheaths that fall off bamboo plants in the natural growth of the plant. Bamboo is strong and quick growing and doesn’t need lots of fertilizer or pesticides. Palm leaves for compostable paper are environmentally friendly and collecting them helps local workers gain income in some places. Vegetable starches from various vegetables, (usually corn or potatoes), can be used to make compostable plastic (PLA, polylactic acid). These plastics are non-toxic and able to decompose into carbon dioxide, water and biomass in industrial facilities. They still break down slowly into micro plastics, however, when left outside or drifting in the ocean. The other problem with PLA that many people have noted lately is that PLA requires air to decompose and landfills are usually anaerobic. In these conditions one study found that the decomposition of PLA releases methane which is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Therefore, throwing our compostables in the landfill is not ideal. Some experts think it’s actually worse than plastic because of the methane it may releases. Another study found that PLA doesn’t break down at all in a landfill, just sits there, which would actually be a better option. One good piece of news I learned is that compostable plastics don’t release chemicals when they are incinerated (because they are made from plant based materials).
So what to do? Purists (some of whom I know) would tell us that we need to quit using compostables, just as we need to get away from plastic as much as possible. Some see the compostables as just another way our disposable culture picks the lazy way out and using them just adds to our addiction to convenience. There’s much to be said for this argument and certainly we need to get back to washing dishes and not getting takeout in plastic or compostable materials. These options are always the right answer when possible. However, at least one article in Treehugger that I read thinks it is still better to use compostable products even if they end up in a landfill or recycling because it is so important to shift people from using plastic that we can afford the difficulties that are resulting in the transition. Also in their favor is the fact that compostables are made with much more environmentally friendly materials that help reduce the use of fossil fuels. Though they use lots of water, in some cases, and often use fossil fuel in production, they are still desirable in our efforts to reduce fossil fuel use and plastic production overall. As the demand for these products increases, this argument continues, we will see improvements in waste management that deal with the compostable waste with industrial facilities.
I am inclined to agree with this more hopeful approach. I don’t think we are going to change our society’s habit of convenience and disposal very soon and we do need a compostable solution. It’s not realistic, in my opinion, to expect people to go back to minimal use of convenience products. The majority of people aren’t going to make their own cosmetics, always bring their own utensils and cups and wash all their dishes. My family would tell you that I am a bit obsessed with reducing plastic and yet I am far from perfect in my attempts. It’s unrealistic to expect that the majority of people in the world will change? Compostable products is one way we making progress toward reducing the use of fossil fuels and so I say let’s keep encouraging their use and working toward better compost management.
One thing I have learned in researching this is that it was unusual that I had a disposal company willing to do industrial scale composting and now that they have quit we are just back to where most communities are. That fact that my local company is still composting yard waste is a huge plus.
So what will I do? I will encourage our church and our family to wash more dishes. I will reduce the amount of compostables I use and recycle those that I can in my own compost (those made of paper, cardboard, bagasse and palm leaves), and throw the rest in the landfill because I think it’s wrong to burden our recycling serve with sorting them. (Most people agree that they aren’t recyclable and it just messes up the system if you try to recycle them.) And finally, I will continue to do what I can to encourage my local community to develop better industrial scale composting. It seemed like crisis when they stopped taking compostables, but now I’m starting to think of it as just one more wake up call.