Over the last few years, various commercial (or industrial) composting programs have emerged across the United States. These programs aim to divert organic waste from landfills effectively. While most commercially compostable material will biodegrade in landfills, eventually freeing up space for non-compostable waste, segueing compostable waste to commercial composting programs does two things landfills cannot.
First, it contributes to a circular or closed-loop economy, as the compostable material eventually transforms into nutrient-rich fertilizer (compost). The resulting fertilizer represents another step in the closed-loop economy. The second contribution relates directly to the economy. Businesses that make compost sell it to consumers, who use it to nourish various crops. Thus, consumers of commercial compost avoid purchasing petrochemical-produced fertilizer. Additionally, keeping organic waste out of landfills also lowers carbon emissions. One group notes that composting could reduce methane emissions from decomposition by about 50%.
A desire to reduce waste has gained considerable steam amongst US citizens helping commercial composting gain momentum. This growth is especially prevalent in urban areas. Commercial composting's growth in cities is because many citizens don't have backyard space to create their own home and garden (H&G) composting systems.
Current Headwinds
Presently, thousands of commercial compositing businesses exist in the United States. Each state has at least one commercial composting facility, and many are highly concentrated in urban areas. Some facilities, servicing mainly landscaping businesses, accept only yard clippings. Others accept organic household waste and compostable plastics. Usually, commercial composting facilities near urban areas accept a wide swath of organic and compostable material. To facilitate the widespread adoption of commercial composting, especially in urban areas, states, and local governments are advocating for commercial composting even more. One illustrative example is the California Compost Law.
Passed in 2021 and enacted on January 1st, 2022, the California Compost Law compels towns, cities, and counties to provide citizens with compostable-waste collection bins and pick-up services. By 2025, the California government aims to divert 75% of 2014's compostable waste volume from landfills to commercial composting facilities. The government even provides citizens with a list of permitted products. Unfortunately, bioplastics are not on the list—the government dictates that citizens must toss all bioplastics into the general landfill. Furthermore, the California government does not explicitly declare these products to be non-biodegradable. Instead, it considers them not to be "short-lived."
Recently, bioplastics suffered yet another gut punch. A large commercial composting business in Colorado, A1 Organics, announced it would no longer accept "compostable packaging and service ware." A1 published a press release on February 27th, 2023 describing their bioplastics-banning rationale. The company cites up to 10% contamination from "glass, metals, papers, and bioplastics."
While it's obvious the detrimental effect that non-compostable bioplastics like poly-lactic acid (PLA) have on commercial composter's operations, utilizing bioplastics that biodegrade quickly is vital to solving the plastic pollution problem. Unfortunately, modern society all but requires take-out food packaging, perishable food packaging, and even straws. So, replacing traditional plastics with legitimately biodegradable ones is quintessential.
Ultimately, society needs to determine which bioplastics are acceptable for commercial composting and then orient itself to striving for a circular and closed-loop economy. However, achieving a circular/closed-loop economy is a Herculean task. The onus is on all stakeholders—governments, businesses, organizations, and consumers to orient their choices to create results that support a circular economy. To divert more waste from landfills, companies and consumers need more tools at their disposal. The goal is to accommodate composting of "able to compost" bioplastics. Getting this accommodation requires government action.
Education, Legislation, and Localization: Compostable Packaging's Way Forward
Bioplastics producers are manufacturing a growing amount of bioplastic applications. To illustrate, some analysts project that the global bioplastics market size will double by 2028. Moreover, consumers are already inundated with various bioplastic-made applications, such as bags, meat trays, straws, cups, food boxes, and more. Thus, the bioplastics revolution is akin to any other period of human history in which life-altering technology changes lives and outlooks.
Humanity is in the "wild west" of biodegradable packaging. Unfortunately, citizens have very little knowledge about the different bioplastic types available. Commercial composting facilities that do not accept bioplastics and governments outlawing the placement of bioplastics in commercial compost collection bins confound what bioplastic-producing businesses set out to achieve by confusing consumers. When California bans bioplastics from going into compost bins or A1 Organics bars biodegradable plastics, consumers form a negative and often incorrect opinion about bioplastics. Thus, lawmakers and businesses must identify problematic bioplastics that do not work well in commercial composting schemes and limit their application through legislation.
Ban ALL Single-Use PLA
A significant action that governments can take is banning the application of PLA "bioplastic" for all single-use products. We've emphasized, ad nauseum, that PLA can never be H&G compostable. The more damming fact about PLA is that it can only break down in highly controlled, stringent conditions. Unfortunately, these conditions are difficult for most commercial composting sites to implement: the complete composting of PLA requires non-stop exposure to 55°C for four to six months.
Island Leaf Commodities, the registered sales agent for Lastic®, engages in daily conversations with professionals involved in straw production, food and beverage distribution, food packaging, and consumer packaging. Unfortunately, every one of these professionals has expressed a distaste for PLA. As a result, all parties refuse to consider using PLA as a raw material for any application they bring to market.
PLA also harms plastics recyclers; processors of thermoformed PET can attest to this. PLA thermoformed trays, and food boxes are transparent. Therefore, they look identical to PET trays. Because thermoformed PLA is a PET look-alike, thermoformed PLA often mistakenly enters thermoformed PET recycling streams. The resulting contamination caused by PLA-tainted feedstock devastates the recycled PET, rendering it useless and forcing the processors to throw it out. Because of this, some people are advocating for a ban on bioplastics altogether. Doing this is like when a teacher punishes the entire class because of one lousy student's misbehavior.
Banning all bioplastics because of the incapability of one bioplastic type is not just an irrational folly. It hinders the closed-loop economy's development. In addition to Lastic®, a few legitimate H&G compostable bioplastics exist. These include PHA and bio-based PBS. Moreover, businesses that use these biopolymers as raw material inputs also have legit compostability certifications from testing agencies like DIN CERTCO, TÜV AUSTRIA, and BPI World. Banning bioplastics is unjust and it ignores the feasibility of actual bioplastics.
Thus, we suggest governments implement a two-step solution.
First, we advocate that governments completely ban PLA for single-use consumer products. While PLA has legitimacy in specific medical applications, producers should not be allowed to use PLA to make food packaging, utensils/cutlery, straws, cups, or anything else that's single-use. Banning PLA would be akin to when governments banned paint-makers from adding lead to paint or construction-materials producers from using asbestos.
Next, governments must require bioplastics makers to signal to consumers which products are H&G compostable, which products are commercially compostable, and which products aren't. Luckily, a model exists. It is the resin identification code concocted by the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) in 1988. The SPI works with governments to require that all plastic products have a plastic-type-defining number stamped on them. Bioplastic-made products need similar scheme. But governments must declare which products qualify as H&G or commercially compostable. After a product gets government approval for H&G compostability, commercial compostability, or both, the product must bear the government-mandated symbol. Products that aren't approved can't bear the symbol. By not doing so, they wouldn't be deemed biodegradable. Such a step would significantly help producers that make legitimately H&G and commercially compostable bioplastics. It would also help consumers easily identify, without questions, biodegradable packaging options.
Currently, a project to measure the viability of several compostable packaging types is being carried out in the US. The Composting Consortium, launched by Closed Loop Partners, an investment fund that supports environmentally friendly businesses and technologies, aims to make "the recovery of compostable food packaging and food scraps" an endeavor that applies to households, businesses, and communities. The Composting Consortium began the Compostable Packaging Degradation Pilot in late January of this year (about two months before we published this blog).
The pilot will assess the biodegradability of over 30 "compostable packaging" types in various composting facilities. It will then conclude the optimal composting environments for each assessed compostable-packaging type. Because of the time horizon required for composting, we expect no conclusions or recommendations until the end of summer 2023, at soonest. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees that the findings will affect future government policies regulating compostable packaging. But the study is, at the very least, a step in the right direction because it's measuring a product's compostability time outside of labs and in actual composting facilities.
Localizing Waste Management
Because of the unpredictable or, at best, snail-paced speed of US government policy creation, businesses and consumers need to take matters into their own hands. We've seen the dark side of business activity with the A1 Organics case mentioned above. Luckily, consumers have a product available—a product that's been on the market for decades—allowing them to begin breaking down their food waste and compostable packaging before they drop it into their composting bin or their H&G compost pile.
These machines range from the size of a bread maker to an outdoor barbeque. They have various names: Food Cycler, Kitchen Composter, Food-Waste Composter, Outdoor Tumbling Composter, among others. For the sake of simplicity, we'll refer to them as a food-waste processors. These machines execute a crucial task. Using about as much energy as a modern dishwasher, they enable people to kick-start biodegradation. And these machines are simple to use. At any time of the day, people can pile their food waste/crushed Lastic® food packaging or straws into the machine and turn it on. The device "cooks" and mixes the compostable material at 60°C. Each cycle lasts 24 hours and shrinks the original mass by about 70%-90%. The resulting substance (we call it "pre-compost") must aerate for about 14 days before users can add it to their soil. When ready, the resulting compost serves as a dense, nutrient-rich fertilizer.
In addition to family-sized machines, food-waste processors are available in a variety of industrial sizes. Food-waste processors exist that can process between 50KG to over 10MT daily. Because such a variety of these machines are on the market, there are incredible implications for the future of waste management in restaurants and commercial composting facilities.
Ideally, every restaurant and commercial composting business would adopt these highly effective machines. Then, ideally, they could provide fertilizer to the local farms where they purchase produce. This model contributes to a closed-loop economy and does not rely on commercial composting services. Thus, businesses implementing these machines create a "mini" circular economy between themselves and their vendors.
Utilizing this technology could be an answer to the current compostable-packaging conundrum. In Taiwan, this concept is being tested in two spaces. First, Lastic® is trying it on a mid-sized scale. After running food waste through large food-waste processor that can process up to 50 kg of compostable waste daily, Lastic® applies the ready pre-compost to crops in their greenhouse. And, Lastic® adds a not-so-secret ingredient into each batch: shredded Lastic® products, including straws, food boxes, and utensils. Why are they shredded? Even though each Lastic® product under 1.17mm in thickness is guaranteed to biodegrade under commercial and H&G conditions in about six months, grinding them in a material shredder significantly reduces composting time. The second piloting party? The Hsinchu County Government. But the Hsinchu County government employs a much larger food-waste processor capable of breaking down over 10MT of food waste daily. The Hsinchu County Government receives food waste from citizens, as it is running a commercial composting operation.
Using Lastic® products serves an essential purpose for both pilot programs. Because all Lastic® products contain a large portion of bamboo fiber, adding them to the food-waste processor's inputs creates divots within the pre-compost's mass. These little holes are crucial because they allow for aeration—a key part of fast biodegradation. High volumes of starchy food like noodles, bread, and rice may create issues for food-waste processors. These starchy foods can coagulate into huge, baked masses inside the machines. The thickness of these chunks stymies aeration, which impedes the composting process. But, Lastic® products' presence prevents them from coagulating into several gooey chunks. Therefore, using Lastic® products as inputs significantly boosts the compostability time of pre-compost.
Although anecdotal, it should be noted that the Lastic® team added PLA to their food-waste processor. Unfortunately, even though the PLA was shredded, it did not begin to biodegrade. The clear flakes offered no nutrition to the soil, and only contributed to unsightly soil-pollution.
Restaurants and cafes of all sizes would benefit from food-waste processors. Adding used Lastic® products into the machines would provide dense nutrients and aeration-enabling fibers. Ideally, restaurants and cafes can use Lastic® straws and food packaging with food-waste processors. While widespread adoption of food-waste processors may take five to ten years, it's important to remember that the technology is already in use.
The act of implementing such a system is not just limited to Lastic's® greenhouse and the Hsinchu Country government collection facility. Google began tracking its food waste ten years ago, meticulously recording all the food waste generated at its cafes. Congruous with the food-waste-processor-utilization concept that Lastic® and Island Leaf are promoting, Google has invested in on-site food-waste processors at some of its cafes.
Although localizing waste management is still in its infancy, food-waste processors are widely available. Stakeholders at all value chain points—households, small cafes, massive restaurants, and waste management facilities—have provided evidence that the mass adoption of this system works.
Using these systems also liberates commercial and H&G compostable bioplastics from pretenders like PLA because PLA doesn't break down in food-waste processors. Thus, food-waste processors serve as a profound truth serum in hashing out which bioplastics contribute to a circular economy. A1 Organics and California should take note.
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