Can you put compostable containers in the compost? Recently, plastic pollution has become a growing problem in our society. In an attempt to address this, some local restaurants have taken the necessary shift away from plastic and styrofoam take-out containers, to compostable products instead. However, after considerable research, I have discovered that compostable products are not as easy to dispose of as one might perceive. Neither the City of Surrey nor The City of White Rock’s residential composting programs will accept any compostable container that resembles plastic. Both cities’ websites instruct residents to place some compostable products straight into your garbage, not your compost or your recycling. It is fantastic to see various local restaurants moving away from plastic to-go containers. As we are learning through the media, our plastic waste is everywhere: in our oceans, rivers, soil, air and even our Arctic ice caps. It is believed by the scientific community that every piece of plastic created since the 1950s, when it was initially manufactured, is still in existence in some form. Some of these plastics may have degraded into microplastics and are now sitting in the stomachs of marine life and even within our own digestive systems. Because we need to reduce our plastic consumption immediately for the health of the earth and for our future, compostable take-out products have secured a valuable place in the market. There are two major types of compostable take-out containers available. The more sustainable option is compostable containers that look similar to paper or cardboard. These are often made of bagasse, the fibrous biproduct of sugar production. As this material was typically thrown away after sugar had been extracted from sugarcane, bagasse is a great alternative to plastic as it is both affordable and biodegradable. Sugarcane can also be harvested every year, in comparison to trees, which, while renewable, take far longer to grow. In this way, bagasse is more sustainable than paper as well. These compostable take-out containers are typically used for solid food items and can be placed directly into your residential compost bin! The other type of compostable products, that actually resemble plastic (cups, bags, cutlery) are made from polylactic acid (PLA), often composed of corn. This is preferable to using a petroleum-based plastic as it is reducing our carbon footprint and decomposes faster than its plastic predecessor. It this way, it is still beneficial to use. However, PLA products cannot be put in our residential compost. They need a moist environment, high temperatures, and an extended period of time to fully decompose and our local compost facilities cannot provide the exact conditions necessary. As mentioned, compostable items that look like plastic are supposed to go into our landfill (according to the cities’ websites), where they will not find the necessary environment to decompose either. It’s not all bad news though. Surrey has a world-class biofuel facility that is the “first fully-integrated, closed-loop organic waste management system in North America.” This means that it creates enough biogas to fuel its fleet of collection vehicles. By separating our compost from our garbage and taking compost to the biofuel facility, Surrey has reduced the city’s contribution to landfill by 40%. Using advance technology, it is able to turn our organic waste into natural gas and sellable compost. Overall, it is thought to reduce our carbon footprint by 50,000 tons of emissions annually, equivalent to taking 10,000 cars off the road. There is no question that this facility supports our quest for sustainability; nevertheless, it does not accept PLA “compostable” products. While White Rock does not use the Surrey facility, their composting system, similarly, cannot accept these products. Is there anywhere that Surrey and White Rock residents can properly dispose of plastic-looking compostable containers? I have sourced one company, Revolution, in South Vancouver, that actually accepts this type of product, shipping it to a farm in Lytton where it is turned into soil. While this solution appears to be the best available, Revolution will currently only accept commercial waste. An additional problem is that Lytton is 230 Kilometers away, ironically adding to our carbon footprint! The Lower Mainland used to have a company in Richmond, Harvest Power, that was able to decompose PLA Products. Unfortunately, they were shut down in 2018, due to complaints about smell. What we need is a company that will accept residential PLA compostable products, as well as a collection system, like the Bottle Depot, to make it easy for residents to do the right thing. So much incredible technology has been developed to mitigate the plastic problem, yet the government has failed to provide us with a workable system! While we continue to search for answers to this conundrum, take advantage of ecofriendly, compostable to-go containers that look like paper and place them in your residential compost, but bring your own cloth bags for shopping, mesh bags for produce, cup for to-go drinks and even your own cutlery.
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