On paper, it’s the silver bullet. Compostable disposables – as they are referred to – provide the ideal solution to the planet’s current pollution woes. Imagine a world in which packaging, rather than going to landfill, into our oceans, and into the digestive systems of the animals that munch on it, instead, simply returned to the earth.

Once there, that packaging would break down into the organic components ready to enhance our soil quality and regenerate our natural resources – bolstering food systems and rescuing an agricultural sector from the edge of collapse within the next 30 to 40 years.

It sounds a little too good to be true. But it is. Well, at the very least, it’s not untrue – but it is rather intricate, highly nuanced, and deeply interesting. Compostable packaging is the future, but that future is yet to be built and the circular economic system it fits snuggly into needs first to become less theory more practice before the real benefit is uncovered.

But what are we, if not the creators of our own destiny? That future needs to begin somewhere – so why not with us? Join us now as we dig a little deeper into the world of compostable packaging.

WHAT IS COMPOSTABLE PACKAGING?

Let’s start by clearing a few things up. Compostable packaging and anything labelled ‘biodegradable’ packaging are wildly, vastly, and expansively different things. At its most basic, ‘biodegradable’ comes with no point of reference or time limit. Wood is a biodegradable material as it will eventually break down back into the soil, yet a log cabin can stand the test of time. With no timeframe within which the process occurs, your ‘biodegradable’ bag could very well still be biodegrading 500 years from now – which goes no distance to address the very immediate problem we face.

Composting, however, has a much quicker turnaround time, averaging at around 12 weeks – under regulated, commercial composting conditions – to break back down into organic matter and return as nutrients ready to enrich the earth.

Officially now defined by the Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) as a form of recycling, composting keeps resources local within your region by turning waste into organic matter that can be used in agriculture, horticulture, and landscaping to nourish soil and improve its structure.

When the former Environment Secretary, Michael Gove warned that UK soils are in trouble and British farms are no more than 30 to 40 years away from “the fundamental eradication of soil fertility” the case for composting became all the clearer.

And if that isn’t enough, it’s a great way for businesses to reduce their environmental impact and join the circular economy, too.

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What materials are we talking about here?

Of course, to return to the soil, it must first come from the soil. Which is why, when we talk about compostable packaging, we are talking about a packaging made strictly from organic material. Development and investment into the science over the years means that compostable packaging today now comes in a variety of shapes and with a variety of names to decipher.

Here’s a quick – and certainly not exhaustive – list of a few:

• Paper and card – of course using FSC certified and recycled resources and vegetable inks as not to leech toxins.

• Polylactic Acid (PLA) – compostable bioplastic derived from plant sugars.

• Bagasse – made from the reclaimed by-product of the sugarcane industry.

• Palm Leaf – Made from naturally fallen Areca palm leaves in South India.

• Vegetable and water-based inks.

• NatureFlex – a clear film made from wood pulp.

• BioPBS – a compostable bioplastic derived from natural materials.

• Mycellum – the magic of mushrooms (Read more later)

Each of these are a derivative of, or by-product from, plants meaning the materials used are renewable by nature. This has vast potential to be a more sustainable method of packaging production than the fossil-fuel based plastic alternatives, providing crops are not over-farmed and responsible levels of production and consumption are maintained.

Production also needs to account for biodiversity and the avoidance of monoculture cropping to maintain a healthy balance with the natural systems the plant resource thrives within. On top of this, land use for agricultural farming for food needs to be prioritised over crop plantations for the production of bio-based plastics and compostable materials.

So, there’s a lot to think about.

INDUSTRIAL COMPOSTING vs HOME COMPOSTING

We said that on paper, composting was the ideal solution. The reality is the process and the system it fits into comes with its own set of restrictions. The most crucial being the behaviour of the end consumer.

In theory, compostable packaging can be composted at home. However, that the end consumer will be able to replicate the conditions under which it will successfully compost (compostable food packaging and PLAs require hot composting at around 58ºC, for instance – easy conditions to hit at industrial level) are factors out of anyone’s control. Most of us lack the space, time, and know-how for home composting – which is why you’ll find compostable packaging suppliers hesitant to advocate for it as an end-of-life process for their own packaging, and why retailers currently remain wary of it.

So, industrial composting it is, then! There’s just one small problem…

Infrastructure frustration

There’s no denying it, the current infrastructure for compostable packaging is… frustrating. While firms like Vegware, a specialist in compostable food packaging, and the Compostable Coalition UK, are leading the charge in putting compostable solutions on the agenda, even a simple infrastructure such as local industrial composting sites across the UK are lacking in attention and investment.

It means that something like food packaging is currently stuck in a vicious cycle. We recognise that food oils and scraps contaminate packaging that would otherwise be fit for the recycling system, making food packaging an area for which compostable disposables would be a key problem solver. However, under the current infrastructure, compostable packaging found within food waste collections is viewed as a contaminant.

Without a wide-spread collections system in place for compostable packaging, the only cross-country coherent system for processing it currently is in the household waste. And we know where that ends up. Landfill.

Now, it may surprise you to learn that the conditions manipulated at landfill sites are done so with the specific intention of stopping materials from breaking down. The composting process for compostable packaging is therefore, far from optimal. And, while it has been discovered the slow break-down process of such packaging is far less detrimental – some sources suggest it is inert with zero methane released in the process – to the environment than other forms of landfill, it doesn’t solve the problem we have with vast pits of packaging spilling into our wildlife and seas.

SO, IS THIS THE END OF THE ROAD FOR COMPOSTABLES?

No. Far from it. We need only look at the selection of names attached to the UK’s Compostable Coalition to see this is an area of growing importance. In April this year, Tesco, OPRL, WWF, Marks & Spencer, and Ocado Retail joined the Coalition’s Advisory Board to help power its mission to ‘Close the Loop on Compostable Packaging’ with a research project examining the practicality of effectively collecting, sorting, and recycling compostable packaging via the UK’s current collection and treatment schemes.

With 1.2 million – or 50% – of the UK’s plastic packaging not currently being recycled, the project wants to address the potential role of mainstreaming compostable packaging as a replacement for some key hard-to-recycle plastics.

But we want answers now, right? And to reach those, nature has another trick up her sleeve…

The Magic of Mushrooms

In the depths of Surrey, a team of scientists has been experimenting hard with mushrooms. Come now, we can all relate… how do you think the majority of us ended up in licensing? While these aren’t, however, those kind of experiments, they have nonetheless produced some eye-opening and mind-expanding results.

The Magical Mushroom Company is a company dedicated to the mysteries of mycelium and the solution it provides to our plastic pollution crisis. A company offering medium-scale and bespoke packaging solutions to areas of industry spanning FMCG, gifting, horticulture, and more, the Magical Mushroom Company does it all “without the polluting legacy of polymers.”

Now, mushroom packaging does tap directly into the magic of nature. Made from a mix of Mycelium – the underground ‘tree’ from which mushrooms spring – and its natural polymer Chitin with agricultural by-products, such as Hemp (the Magical Mushroom Company uses hemp in 98% of its products owing to its ability to lock up carbon dioxide at the rate of around 15 tonnes per hectare) the magic occurs at the packaging’s end of life.

Mushroom Packaging is home compostable. When broken up into small pieces by hand, it can return to the soil within 45 days – keeping its carbon locked up and returning precious nitrates to the earth. This is a process that can occur in your home compost heap, garden, or even in a plant pot.

Want to hear another benefit of using mycelium? By encouraging its growth underground, mycelium can continue its work to provide a network of connectivity beneath the forest floor, where it provides nutrients to forest fauna in exchange for plant sugars.

Could you think of anything more regenerative than that?

Okay, what about the drawbacks – there’s always one… 

Well, yes. In this case two. Mycelium packaging is almost your perfect material. Its only disadvantages are you could find yourself limited over the weight it can carry as a packaging solution. You’ll also find its lifespan is far shorter than that of plastic – meaning businesses with long-shipping and lead times may find their mushroom packaging in a state of decomposition before the product lands on UK shores.

Again, however, this highlights that the solutions really are present when we stop and begin to reassess the systems we work within. If we can reduce the miles travelled between product manufacture and its final destination, we can begin to increase the adoption of materials that not only have a reduced impact on the environment but, in the case mycelium packaging, have the potential to impact our soils positively.

Material innovation will be a key part to creating sustainable systems for consumer products. However, what’s clear is it is not the one single answer. In the right, truly circular economic system, compostable packaging will have an integral role to play in regenerating natural resources, and, with the single-use plastic ban now in effect as of October 1 here in the UK, further investigation and investment into its use within the takeaway food sector will be crucial to many businesses.

The future for compostable packaging is filled with potential, but it’s going to take some extra digging into.