Whether you are talking about composting, oxo-degradability or biodegradability, the options are numerous, the facts confusing and the claims are very often downright misleading. The cartoon shown is appearing in the April issue of Packaging World magazine and it would be great if any degradable packaging product really worked as well or as quickly as the product Eco Ed is complaining about. The fact is that few do.

Composting

This option seems to be the favorite of food service companies because quite often their waste includes scrap food waste. It would be absolutely fantastic if that disposable plate, spoon, or clamshell style container could be composted along with the food waste it may contain and then the earth would be a big, happy and green place. Unfortunately the fine print on most “compostable” products is that it will only degrade or breakdown in a municipal or industrial compost facility.

So I went to www.findacomposter.com and typed in my home state of Illinois. I was pleased to see seven composting facilities listed but when I clicked for more information I found out they all do composting of yard waste, not the type of food and food service waste we need to be processed. Keep in mind there are people who buy these products who actually believe they will be able to process them in their back yard compost heap. All I can suggest is keep the house in the family and perhaps the grand kids will live long enough see these products degrade. (more…)

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I really wish that was not the case but it is. I have written and spoken on this topic numerous times but a recent reader response on this blog from Neil Hunter in the UK has motivated me to address it once again.

I think we all hope that eventually there will be consistent and clear definitions, and terms like eco-friendly, sustainable, compostable, biodegradable will all mean the same thing to everyone. But that is not the case today or probably any time soon.


When in doubt, claim everything?

There are certain packaging product areas where green has an even greater amount of “gray” and that most definitely includes bio-plastics. Consider the variety of products and applications out there and you will see the obvious problem. To me “plastics” means packaging films for wrapping, shrinking and forming. To our reader Neil, plastics are about disposable cutlery. Can “standards” ever be the same for both of us? (more…)