Food service businesses of all types have been using plastic containers with lids for decades. The containers come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes and are used as: take out food clamshells, deli containers, water and soda bottles, coffee cups, personal care bottles (e.g., shampoo or body wash bottles), and a great number of food items lining the shelves of grocery stores (e.g., milk cartons, food trays for produce, yogurt cups).

Traditionally, these items have been made from petroleum, but increasingly a new generation of containers and lids are available that are made from renewable resources including polylactic acid (corn), bagasse, paper, and wheat straw. These materials can be used to make food containers and lids that are certified 100% compostable according to ASTM D-6400 and D-6868, and can thus be composted in a commercial composting facility.

So with that, here are:

6 Reasons to Switch from Plastic Containers to Compostable Containers

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The vast majority of the US does not live in a city / town that offers curbside composting. Traditionally this has meant that if you want to compost, you need to set up your own home or backyard composting system. For some folks this is easy – they have acres of land and setting up a compost pile is a piece of cake.

For city dwellers however it’s a bit more difficult. Backyards are scarce, sometimes shared, and often small. Indoor composting options are available, but they can be expensive (e.g., the Naturemill starts at $299) and the cheaper home-made options can be smelly or attract bugs.

And that’s just for your home. Now think about running an eco-minded restaurant or cafe where you have 10x the waste of a household. You’re trying to move toward zero-waste and compost your food scraps (and even your food packaging)… but you don’t have a backyard, and you sure don’t have enough space to compost all your food waste indoors in your kitchen.

So what do you do?

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