Compostable Plastic

Compostable plastic is not made from petroleum, unlike most plastic products. The recent greening of this field comes from, well, real fields (mostly corn).

Anyone who has visited a landfill or open dump can plainly see how petro-plastics last. Many of these products degrade – the garbage bag rips, the bottle gets brittle and breaks. But they don’t bio-degrade, because they don’t break down into materials the earth can absorb and re-use as a nutrient. The best we can do with some of these petro-plastics is down-cycle them – turn them into other products, such as pop bottles remanufactured into fleece clothing. And when they’ve been reused as much as possible, they still end up in a landfill.

Now there is good news from the Biodegradable Products Institute and the US Composting Council. Plastics not only can be made from plants, they are also available today from a variety of makers and distributors, often at competitive prices. Some of the products available include:
garbage bags made from corn starch;
plates, bowls, and cups made from sugarcane fiber;
silverware made from corn or potato starch; and
water bottles made from corn. (Biota Spring Water - the only water currently bottled in a truly green plastic)

Some of these are truly compostable, meaning you can mix them in with yard waste, food scraps, and the like, and they will break down and be taken up by micro-organisms at the same rate as the other plant-based materials. A few of the products break down too slowly to fit this definition, but are still bio-degradable, meaning they break down into their natural components and can be re-used by the earth as nutrient, but in a slower process. In either case, the lack of toxins is good news for communities concerned about persistent organic pollutants getting into their soil and water supplies – because these environmentally friendly plastics don’t contain those chemical components.

Set a green table with compostable plastic and other green tips.