Municipal Composting

What is Composting?

Composting is the natural process of biodegration under controlled conditions. Various microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria digest and/or break down organic matter into dark coloured humus (soil) often refered to as compost.

What Can be Composted?

All organic items can be composted, i.e. anything that rots. This list includes plant vegetation, food scraps, paper products and pet waste. An important note with composting however is that the material that is composted can have an effect on the final soil product. Chemicals in or on composted materials, which cannot be broken down, will taint the final compost and if toxic can transfer that toxicity to the plants grown in the soil. For compost being used to grow vegetables, there should be more discretion used in selecting which materials are composted. Dog poop in biodegradable bags is not suggested for use in compost that will eventually be used to grow food since its possible that some parasites a dog could have may be transfered to the food and therefore to whomever consumes it. One thing that is important to note is that many of the products today that claim to be biodegradable are not actually (see Bio Plastic Info). One of the products that claim to be biodegradable but are not are anything containing the letters OXO. These products typically require sunlight to properly degrade and do not use bacteria to break down the material so it is unnecessary to compost them anyways. Because of these reasons, OXO products are not suitable candidates for composting and will leave pieces of plastic in your compost if they do make it in.

How do City Compost Programs Work?

Since city composting programs are a relatively new concept, there are few if any standards that are shared between them all. It's important to find out what standards your region uses since different regions will accept different materials. Some will accept the materials in plastic bags since they break the bags and empty the contents into the composting facility (as the Guelph-wellington facility used to). The one standard that's becoming more and more recognized for compost bin liners is the BPI compostable certification which runs on the ASTM D6400 standards. This standard requires the bag to biodegrade beyond recognition within 90 days.

Why Compost?

There are many reasons why composting in important and beneficial to all. It's becoming clearer every day that if we want to sustain the earth as a habitable ecosystem for humans, plants and animals then we as humans must and have a responsibility to reduce our waste and help save the environment that we damage every day. Another reason why people compost is the rewarding feeling they get from creating something and if they use it to garden with afterwards it adds to their appreciation of all that is grown. It is also beneficial to your garden to use compost since it will be some of the richest soil you can find or buy providing tons of nutrients for growing plants.

How Long Does Composting Take?

Typical composting takes around 3 months to completely break down the components and make it suitable for use as soil. Many city composting facilities require the material they take in to be biodegradable within one month so it's important to check the requirements of your regions composting facility. Some materials take longer than others to compost and there are many factors that effect composting rates such as aeration, heat, bacteria levels, etc. As a result of all these variables it is virtually impossible to give a definite amount of time an item will take to biodegrade.

Toronto working itself into a corner

Last week the Toronto city council decided that they are going to implement a 5 cent tax on all plastic retail bags. This tax will have a positive environmental effect since it will reduce Toronto's consumption of plastic bags.

Another thing the council decided on was a ban of biodegradable and compostable bags. The logic behind the banning of biodegradable bags was to ensure that these biodegradable plastics do not get mixed in with standard plastics for recycling as it would lessen the quality of the plastic.

What the council presumably failed to see was that only 1-4% of plastic retail bags are recycled. Since recycled bags have to be clean of any dirt or contaminants and due to our poor recycling habits very few of them actually get recycled. This amount of plastic makes up a very small portion of plastics being recycled. It seems ridiculous to believe that the minuscule amount of biodegradable plastics that would end up in the recycling stream could have an effect on the finished recycled product.

The only reason biodegradable plastics are in our recycling system right now is because of the failure of our passive governments to recognize a good thing and regulate biodegradable plastics. There are no Canadian government standards on what can be called biodegradable as there are in places like California. The majority of Canadian municipalities running composting programs will only allow bags certified by an American organization (The Biodegradable Products Institute or BPI) which does no testing themselves and only owns the rights to a compost indicating logo. The act of certifying a product with them costs upwards of $5 000 USD.

Since the government has not done anything about regulating the bio-plastics industry, manufacturers and governing bodies have been left to rely on for-profit third party companies to offer a solution. This lack of government control has also resulted in poor quality biodegradable plastics (none of which would be suitable for composting facilities) since manufacturers will take the cheapest production method possible if not regulated.

What the Canadian Government and other governments need to do is set some standards for biodegradable plastic bags. Biodegradable retail bags should all have to be a distinctive colour. This colour should be one that isn't often seen in the retail bag world such as dark brown because:

• If the biodegradable bags were all a distinct colour then they could be easily recognized and removed from the plastic for recycling.

• This simple step would help commercial compost facilities since the government would set national biodegradable bag standards. This would reduce the amount of plastic then end up with in their final compost product since they could remove all plastic that is not the bidoegradable colour.

• It would reduce on the number of plastic bags used since the price of biodegradable plastics has dropped drastically in the past few years and the cost of a biodegradable bag could be paid for by using the money from the plastic bag and 5 cent bag tax.

• Retail stores would have added reason to impose biodegradable bags with the new plastic bag tax being implemented. The single recognizable colour would also be a benefit to them in terms of marketing since it would make it seem to consumers that they're putting forth effort to help the environment.

Please write to your local, provincial, and federal politicians in order to make them aware of issues such as these and to ensure that we do everything possible to keep the planet in a livable condition.

Why Should Companies Go Green?

Plastic bags currently dominate the world of consumer packaging and are being consumed at a rate of 500 billion to 1 trillion bags annually and only 1-3% of plastic bags are recycled according to the Wall Street Journal. Those bags which are not recycled can take 1000’s of years to photo-degrade, a process where the chemicals leach out and contaminate the environment. Plastic bags are also devastating to wildlife, killing millions of animals a year from suffocation or intoxication.

Paper bags are often viewed as an earth friendly alternative however they are not. Paper bags take four times as much energy to manufacture as plastic bags and generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than their plastic counterparts. Plus according to the Plastic Recycling Directory, of the Society of Plastics Industry plastic bags take 17 BTU's to recycle whereas paper bags take 1444 BTU's.

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of their impact on the environment and because of this they are looking for environmentally friendly alternatives to the products they use such as the plastic and paper bags which are damaging our earth. Using biodegradable, earth friendly bags, allows your company to do its part and makes your customers feel good about their purchase.

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An Ipsos study sponsored by Tandberg recently polled 16,000 consumers in 15 countries to see how a company being "green" effects their opinion. Here are some highlights of the executive summary of the study:

More than half said they would prefer to purchase products and services from a company with a good environmental reputation

80% believe that working for an environmentally ethical organization is important

24% believe that their individual action should be a key to driving environmental change

32% admitted that they have not yet taken personal action to reduce climate change

Over half of respondents felt that government should take the lead in limiting the effects of climate change, with 47% percent citing national government and 11% citing international institutions as the key drivers in the environmental movement.

Government policies, subsidies, and incentives that were rated the most likely to change corporate environmental behavior.

Twelve percent of respondents felt that business/corporations should take the lead when it comes to limiting the effects of climate change.

http://www.seegreennow.com/GreenSurvey.aspx

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An article at ITbusiness.ca quotes Jay Illingworth, VP of Electronic Products Sterwardship Canada, a non-profit company that looks at "sustainable product management and disposal practices". He said 92 percent of Canadians say they would rather make purchases from socially responsible companies.

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/Home/News.asp?id=41638

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If you're companies ready to look into environmental options in the packaging field please visit www.elmhirstpackaging.ca and speak to someone at Elmhirst Packaging Ltd. about biodegradable packaging options.

Are You Getting What You Paid For?

Biodegradable plastics are relatively new to the consumer market. The reason biodegradable plastics have not been used in commercial applications is not because it's new technology (the technology has been around for a few years) but because of the additional cost involved in producing the materials.

It is only now, within the past year or so that people have realized that it's worthwhile incurring a little extra expense when it means helping to save our planet. What people don't realize is that not all so-called 'biodegradable plastics' are created equally. Some biodegradable plastics will biodegrade in a matter of weeks whereas others can be sitting around in landfills for years. It's important to recognize the different forms of biodegradable plastic since money spent on helping the earth shouldn't go towards plastic lying un-degraded in landfills.

There are three main types of biodegradable plastics:

1. Ones made completely from vegetable matter
2. Ones made from a blend of vegetable matter blended with conventional plastics
3. Ones made from a degradable additive blended conventional plastics

Plastics made completely from vegetable matter are arguably the best for the environment and are the likely the future of packaging materials since they are made from plant starches from corn, tapioca, soy, etc. all renewable resources. These plastics, called PLA (polylactide) break down completely into carbon dioxide and water in roughly 60 days. PLA is broken down by microbes in the same way that leaves or other organic materials are. These plastics are often used for film to make bags such as some of the Biodegradable PLA bags made by us at Elmhirst Packaging Ltd.

Plastics made from a blend of vegetable starches and petroleum based plastics are fairly new in the world of biodegradable plastics. This has quickly become a very popular method of bio plastic production since blending starch with plastics such as HDPE and LDPE decreases the price of the bio plastic. The downside to this form of plastic is that it is not made of completely renewable resources and it often takes longer to biodegrade. These plastics have been used in all sorts of applications from biodegradable dog waste bags like Doodeefulls to injection molded plastic parts.

Plastics created from petroleum based plastics and a degradable additive are the most common form of "biodegradable" plastic out there since they are the least expensive to produce. Any standard plastic factory can be converted to produce bio plastic by simply putting an additive in with the raw plastic material. This additive is typically composed of heavy metals which oxidize and break up the petroleum based plastic. These types of plastic are often referred to as OXO degradable plastics. Products made with OXO plastics often claim to be biodegradable however the reason they are able to make this claim more often than not is because they have trademarked names with "biodegradable" in it and versions of it such as the commonly seen "OXO-Biodegradable". Some of these products just falsely claim to be biodegradable and claim it's because bacteria eventually can consume the plastic however the majority of the degradation is done through the oxidation of heavy metals and not through the natural method of microbial consumption. There are no universal standards for these plastics so their rate of decomposition is dependant on the amount of additive used. Although degradable/biodegradable plastics are better for the environment than non degradable ones, concern has been raised over possible health issues involved with prolonged exposure to the heavy metals in OXO plastics.

PLA plastics may be the most expensive biodegradable plastic out there but it's also the best for the environment. The decision is not only that of the consumers but also of the manufacturers so it's important that consumers who are very environmentally conscious request that materials such as PLA plastics be used to produce the products we use every day.

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