So a big shout out to Crave Catering in Brooklyn, NY. Crave (a new Viv Biz Club member) has recently gotten involved with the Vokashi system of accelerated composting.

Vokashi is based on the process of food recycling known as Bokashi. As described at Vokashi.com:
“Bokashi in Japanese refers to the process of fermenting organic matter. The method uses anaerobic (without oxygen) fermentation to ‘pickle’ organic matter in an airtight container with a bran that is inoculated with effective microorganisms. Once the matter is matured it can be planted in your garden or added to above ground composting boxes. Within weeks, the fermented matter is decomposed into highly nutrient rich soil ready for use as natural fertilizer or for planting.”

Crave has had food waste fermenting in Vokashi bins for the past 3 months and recently sent me a photo album of their Vokashi Trenching.

If you’re interested in Bokashi or alternative forms of composting, it’s a must see:

Step 1: Build or purchase planters for composting

Step 2: Line planters with chicken wire

Step 3: Add a layer of moss to the planters to prevent soil from dropping through chicken wire

Step 4: Add a layer of soil to the planters

Step 5: Bring out food waste that has been fermenting in Vokashi bins for 3 months (mmm… tasty!)

Step 6: Dig trench in soil and spread a layer of the food waste in the trench

Step 7: Cover with another layer of soil

Step 8: Stay tuned for nutrient rich soil…

I was wondering about this recently and found a fantastic Treehugger write-up on the issue.

I highly recommend reading the article (including comments) if you want the full scope. (Also, they’re a bit biased, but the Insinkerator folks have a fairly solid video detailing what happens to food waste when it goes down a garbage disposal).

Anyway, here are the key take-aways:

1. Composting is always the preferred method to dispose of food waste. If you don’t have access to curbside composting or do not want to start & tend a compost pile in your backyard, I’d recommend trying a Naturemill.
   

   Naturemill Indoor Composter: Arul’s brother recently purchased one (good work Bhu!) and I have to say it was pretty awesome. It’s small, fits in your kitchen, and churns / oxidizes food scraps so that they heat up and break down quickly… replicating the conditions of an industrial composting facility (full post on this product coming soon).

2. If you’re unable to compost (and really most folks who can afford a Naturemill should be able to), then typically, putting food waste down a garbage disposal is your next best option. There are two main benefits from using a garbage disposal as opposed to just placing food waste in the trash, including: 1) energy savings (less trucks hauling trash to landfills) and 2) reduced food waste in landfills (some of the bio-solids that end up in Waste Water Treatment Plants, WWPTs, are turned into fertilizer).
3. Room for debate: It is important to note however that when food waste breaks down in an anaerobic environment (landfills & WWPTs are typically anaerobic environments), the food waste produces methane gas. There’s a stronger movement amongst landfills (relative to WWPTS) to re-capture that gas and prevent it from entering our atmosphere (where is it 21 times as potent as CO2). If you live in California, where methane re-capture is required for all new landfills, it may be better to have your food waste hauled to a landfill (though again – compost first).

We recently had a very smart question come through from a new Viv business – Crave Catering + Events – based in Brooklyn, NY. After responding, I thought we should share the response with other Vivers who may be wondering the same thing. Enjoy!

The Question Went Like This:

“Are the compostable plates biodegradable…as in if we throw them out and they end up in a landfill somewhere will they biodegrade?

At Crave we currently don’t compost, but we do food recycling. We use a system called bokashi, but we are not able to use that on compostable products… I was hoping to figure out another alternative because I certainly don’t want the plates to end up in a landfill and just sit there.”

My Response:

The bagasse / wheat straw plates are biodegradable, but in an anaerobic environment such as a landfill they will take significantly longer to breakdown (likely a few years… as opposed to 30 days in a commercial composting system or 90 days in a home composting system).

I’d say a few things:

1. Since composting isn’t offered by your city, you could
   • create a home composting system, or
   • look-up a composting facility near you that may offer pick-up or drop-off using FindAComposter.com
2. You may want to check with the folks at Vokashi (Crave’s Bokashi Partner) to see if their system can be used on “bagasse” products specifically. I could see it not working with things like compostable cutlery which have a longer biodegradation cycle, but bagasse products break down quite quickly and in the right amounts it may work with Bokashi.
3. Obviously, composting the products is ideal and if you can do #1 or #2, fantastic. If not, there are still quite a number of benefits to using compostable products, which I think are pretty powerful. To name a few:
   • Less Energy Used – World Centric is able to make >3 bagasse plates for every one styrofoam plate that’s made (and 2 forks for everyone 1 plastic fork)
   • Less Dependence on Petroleum – By using compostables made from sustainable materials we’re reducing our dependence on oil
   • Less Damage via Externalities to Mother Nature – Products like styrofoam (as well as some plastic products) are harmful to the planet in ways beyond the fact that they add to our landfills (e.g., styrofoam often breaks up into small pieces which are toxic to animals & marine life; styrofoam & some plastics also leach toxins into our ground water; the list goes on)

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)

Looking to make a purchase? Check out our Viv utensils that are 100% compostable.

Our offices are based in SOMA San Francisco and after picking up a salad at Whole Foods for lunch today, I saw the following sign next to their disposable cutlery – Taterware. If you can’t read the sign it says:

“Dear customers, we have been informed by Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling that the present formulation of Taterware cutlery has not been found to be compostable in the commercial compost program at Jepson Prairie Organics where our compost is currently being sent. The product is not presently acceptable in the San Francisco composting program or in its recycling program.”

First, I’ll say this was not a suprise to me, as Taterware is not certified as compostable by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI). Further, I have reports on my desk from Cambridge Polymer Group which state that Taterware is made up of 73% polypropylene (or plastic).

I imagine though that this will come as quite a surprise to the many business owners & consumers that use Taterware everyday, expecting it to compost in a commercial composting facility.

Something that many folks don’t know is that “biodegradable” does not mean “compostable”, and while Taterware is labeled biodegradable it was never certified compostable.

I am happy to say that our food ware partner, World Centric, uses cutlery that has been 3rd party tested as containing no plastic and is currently under process of ASTM 6400 testing. (Further speaking to the integrity behind World Centric, they share on their website, that they were previously using cutlery which despite being BPI certified and meeting ASTM standards was found to be not fully compostable. They discontinued the corn-resin which was causing the issue and have now had their utensils re-tested and confirmed as fully compostable containing 0% PP).

If you have further questions, there’s a Whole Foods contact (noted in the sign) that you can reach out to. We’ll be reaching out to Whole Foods to see if they’re interested in switching over to World Centric’s compostable cutlery: a mix of 70% non-GMO PLA and 30% talc.

(ps – sorry for the spills on the sign, looks like Whole Foods customers were a bit messy today.)

UPDATE (8/3/2010): Viv Video | “Biodegradable Packaging vs Compostable Packaging – DON’T get Greenwashed”