Dear Marty (with a y),
What those containers lack in dishwasherability they make up for in compostability (it’s fun having a column, you can create new words!). While they’re not great for use in a dishwasher or the microwave unless you’re inventing a new kind of homemade silly putty, these compostable containers do represent a new development toward more sustainable design. Instead of being made from a non-renewable, petroleum-based plastic polymer, they are made of a polymer derived entirely from corn (they can also be made from potatoes and other plants). They’re part of a growing trend in “disposable” single-use products designed for the environment, not for the dump. Reusable products are always the better choice environmentally, but many single-use product manufacturers are looking at making their products—such as “to go” containers, diapers, plastic utensils, foam peanuts and packaging, and plastic cups and plates—with renewable resources that are less toxic to produce and that don’t wind up in the landfill.
Alternative products made from plant sugars look and feel a lot like their petroleum-based plastic counterparts, but instead of being designed to be tossed into the landfill where plastic may stay for hundreds if not thousands of years, they’re designed to go into a municipal compost program. There they biodegrade when exposed to the elements—including water (which is why your container morphed into a gooey corn sculpture in a dishwasher).
In communities like San Francisco where food waste, yard waste, and other organic materials are collected at the curb and then taken to a community compost facility, compostable plastics made from plant sugars can go right into the “green waste” bin. In the absence of a municipal composting program here (but we’re working on it), and because temperatures in a backyard composter don’t get high enough to degrade this material, our local Wild Oats stores are asking customers to return those containers to the store so they can be composted through a commercial program. The containers should NOT go in your recycling bin and they shouldn’t go into the landfill. A landfill doesn’t act like a compost facility. Organic materials in the landfill don’t have access to the elements so they degrade anaerobically, emitting the greenhouse gas methane.
The concept of designing materials for the environment, (DFE as it is officially known), is a critical component of a Zero Waste future. If manufacturers designed their products and packaging to be non-toxic, resource efficient, and to be reused, recycled, or composted at the end of their useful lives, then pollution on the manufacturing end would be seriously minimized, resources would be conserved, and recyclers and composters would be able to recover virtually all materials generated— creating a sustainable cycle.
This cycle is not just an eco-fantasy. You can be part of the reality at the Zero Waste Farmers’ Market in Boulder, the first ongoing Zero Waste event in the country. Market vendors, growers, and organizers are making a significant contribution to the Zero Waste movement by partnering with Eco-Cycle to demonstrate a mini Zero Waste community in practice. Vendors at the market have all agreed to switch out their petroleum-based disposable containers, including coffee cups, utensils—even straws—with plant-based, compostable alternatives, and they encourage customers to reuse mugs, bags, and containers. Trash cans have been removed from the market and replaced with Zero Waste stations accepting recyclables and compostables only.
Reusables still trump even bio-based disposables so maybe someday we can have a mobile dishwasher at events like these to encourage reusables over any kind of disposable, but for now we’ll have to keep the corn out of the wash.
