<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/03/greenwash-home-compostable-plastics-dont-work-aoe>
"Most plastics marketed as “home compostable” don’t actually work, with as much
as 60% failing to disintegrate after six months, according to research.
An estimated 10% of people can effectively compost at home, but for the
remaining 90% of the population the best place to dispose of compostable
plastics is in landfill, where they slowly break down, releasing methane,
researchers say. If compostable plastic ends up among food waste, it
contaminates it and blocks the recycling process, the study finds. The only
solution is to use less plastic.
“The bottom line is that home compostable plastics don’t work,” said Prof Mark
Miodownik, an author of the paper, published in the journal
Frontiers in
Sustainability. “Let’s just stop. Let’s not pretend to ourselves that it’s
going to be some sort of panacea, and you can sell people stuff without really
having infrastructure to deal with the waste and hope that it’s all going to go
away.”
The study showed that most of the plastic that people put in their home compost
shouldn’t be there anyway. Researchers found 14% of plastic packaging items
were certified “industrially compostable” and 46% have no compostable
certification (for example they could be “100% biodegradable”, which typically
means it cannot be composted).
People are confused by the labels, and struggle to work out what goes where,
yet 85% of people remain enthusiastic about buying compostable plastics, the
report said.
“People want them to work,” said Miodownik, who is part of University College
London’s Plastic Waste Innovation Hub. “People are really trying to do the
right thing, mostly, so I feel bad for them that it’s turned out this way. But
actually, home composting just doesn’t work,” he said."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
