Some Compostable Cutlery… Not Compostable… Boooooo 
Written by arul • Saturday, February 20, 2010 • 3 comments.
One bad apple can give all the others a bad name. A number of companies and perhaps more have been distributing compostable cutlery or utensils that really fall short of their name. A “compostable” utensil (fork, spoon, knife, or even the magical spork) is one that is made of sustainable materials and does not contain traditional plastic or toxic chemicals. Here is the fancy definition if you really want to know:
“…capable of undergoing biological decomposition in a compost site as part of an available program, such that the plastic is not visually distinguishable and breaks down to carbon dioxide, water, inorganic compounds, and biomass, at a rate consistent with known compostable materials (e.g. cellulose) and leaves no toxic residue.” – American Society for Testing & Materials (ASTM).
UPDATE (8/3/2010): Viv Video | “Biodegradable Packaging vs Compostable Packaging – DON’T get Greenwashed”
We touched on this news in an earlier blog post where Whole Foods acknowledged that their Taterware forks & spoons are not compostable. So here is some more meat to the story. Third-party testing of samples of the following companies’ cutlery has shown that these utensils contain large amounts of plastic and are not compostable:
- Dispozo sample had 96% polystyrene by weight
- EPS Spud Ware sample had 41% polypropylene homopolymer by weight
- TaterWare sample had 73% isotactic polypropylene by weight
- Terra Wave sample had 57% polypropylene block copolymer by weight
Basically, this stuff is bogus and should never be called compostable. As icing on the cake, none of the above brands are certified as compostable by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI).
Remember how one bad apple can also spoil the whole bunch? So one of these utensils by the brands above gets tossed into a composting bin. Then it ends up in a composting pile, which then becomes fertilizer. Then that organic fertilizer ends up back in the food chain and poly-fill-in-the-blanks (= not-so-edible substances) with it too. Not good.
Here is our recommendation. Stop buying the stuff above. Switch to something actually compostable. And yes, we can help you find products that are actually compostable, actually green, and actually do what they’re supposed to.
(If you’d like more information on the above, please feel free to email us at partners@vivbizclub.com)
[...] mentioned in other posts the long definition goes as [...]
We tested a cutlery being distributed by Sysco Canada and a Toronto company named Gallimore (who distributes in the USA through Atlantic Mills). Advance Materials Centre who is an approved lab for the BPI, came back with a report that said this cutlery had such high levels of plasitcs it would not be compostable.
The disappointing thing is that these large companies embossed the word ‘compostable’ on the cultery and lifted, without permission, Din Certco’s logo to authenticate their claim. Din certco is the German equivalent of BPI and certifies products as compostable in Europe. Please visit our blog at http://www.wastereductionstore.com to see the test results.
The 2010 Vancouver Olympics used Gallimore to provide their cultery. Only after we tipped off the press and the Olympics was this company forced to change their sources of cutlery. They had provided the Olympics with docuemtns stating that the resin they were using was certified as compostable. Companies need to be aware that they must insist on product certification in writing by a recognized third party like BPI or the soon to be launch Canadian equivalent BNQ.
Taterware is yet another product line, like many that is NOT doing their due diligence to back up their ‘green’ claims. We vetted this supplier in 2006 to determine whether or not we wanted to distribute their line. There were obvious reasons why the Taterware line is not marked ‘compostable’ but biodegradable: Litigation.
Theoretically anything is biodegradable- with time. Taterware can hide behind this marketing. In contrast the word compostable word (if embossed on the product) implies that the product met with internationally recognized ASTD stnadrds for compostability. When these claims are verified by a reputable lab and then authenticate by a non-profit like BPI, this ensures that the product will break down in a way that can create quality compost in a definite time frame.
The concept of ‘compostable’ products is to divert as much waste from landfills into composting programs and create a local resource. This is a bigger step forward from our recycling concept. The push with recycling was/is to divert as much waste from landfills into recycling centres, find brokers to sell it to manufacturers somewhere around the world to turn it into more things. This works very well with certain streams like carboard, aluminun, paper, etc. This concept does not work with disposable food ware. So when we implement composting programs we can divert both food waste and certified compostables into a local program and create a local resource to use on our soils.
We need to share this type of information about the products that can actually be sent to compost; how to set up (and why) compost programs to handle large scale business waste that can be composted; and which products are scams. Thanks for posting this info (and the additional comments). I will link to this site.
Kathleen – Fantastic comment and my apologies for not replying sooner. I think we share many of the same concerns and hopes for the industry and it’s great to see that y’all are as on top of these issues as we try to be. Given your knowledge in the space, you may be interested to read more about a new report on commercial composting facilities and their acceptance of food packaging. It’s more US focused, but I imagine many of the findings could be applicable to Canada. The report was commissioned by the Sustainable Packaging Coalition and a high-level summary can be found here – http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Financial-Industry/Report-outlines-compostable-packaging-challenges