Urban Ecoist

So my question today is…what am I supposed to do with the new biodegradable plastics? Can I include them in my other biodegradable compostable materials or can I recycle them like most plastics?

This is the idea, but…

I am an avid recycler. I take great pride in the miniscule amount of actual trash that I produce in my household. However, I am starting to fill up my recycling “room” with these compostable plastics because I am not quite sure how to treat them — waste or recyclables?

So far, I think the jury is out. Even in Portland, I am only allowed to put out true yard waste in my curbside compost cart. Technically, I don’t believe I am supposed to be putting my kitchen waste into my curbside cart, but I sneak it in under other plant matter. I understand why the city program wouldn’t want everyone adding kitchen waste to the yard waste, as maybe not everyone would be conscientious enough to ensure that no fats or oils were in those kitchen scraps, but I am extremely careful about that kind of thing. And it is true that I have a small backyard behind my urban home, so I do have my own compost pile, but every now and then, I get lazy and just toss the vegetable peelings in the compost bin when I am in between building new compost piles.

Anyhoo, to stay on track, some biodegradable plastics are marked #7 PLA. The PLA stands for Polylactic Acid. Lactic sounds like lactose, right, and lactose is the same compound that is in milk, if you need a practical reference. PLA is a compound (actually a family of compounds) that can be made into polymers, which create a pliable structure, so the PLA packaging is not a rigid, hard plastic but rather a softer, pliable, lightweight “plastic.”

As an example, I have in front of me a package made from PLA that held organic baby spinach leaves. And despite the reassuring “corn cob” symbol that tells me that the package is made from “…plants — not oil,” I really am not sure how to dispose of this package.

I checked my city’s recycling website, and as it is marked #7, it can be recycled, but not by my curbside program. I must drop off my #7’s to a local recycling facility, where I can drop off all numbered plastics. So problem solved, right? Partly no, as it seems that there has been some problems keeping the bioplastics out of the petroleum-based plastics waste stream, which means that both types of plastics are being melted down together. The “crossing of the streams” is undermining the quality of recycled plastic. Awesome [read sarcasm].

So, now what do I do? The #7 packaging for my spinach says

No where does it say, hey, this is compostable. Nuts. Biodegradable does not mean compostable.

So I guess I have to throw it away, to be responsible. I could take the chance of recycling it, but in the long run, I will be contaminating the recycled plastics market. What is an Urban Ecoist to do?

Avoid buying #7 plastic.

Here is my full list of reasons that I have for making that statement.

1. PLA plastics may get mixed into the other plastic recycling streams, degrading the quality of all recycled plastic.

2. PLA is biodegradable but not compostable unless composted in the high heat of a commercial composting facility, so if I don’t recycle it, I am forced to throw it in the regular trash stream, i.e. the landfills. Landfills may not break down the PLA without the proper amount of oxygen and nitrogen. If the PLA doesn’t break down properly, it can instead release methane (20 times more greenhouse-y than carbon dioxide), in addition to the carbon dioxide it will break down into normally.

Here are two more reason that I have not covered in my argument heretofore.

3. PLA diverts corn, wheat, and other crops from the food supply, a complaint about biofuels as well — it seems like a great idea, making packaging from organic material, but we need to make the packaging from organic material that wouldn’t be better used as food. The other side of that issue is that there is only so much land fit for growing crops, and if we divert some of it to growing matter for bioplastics, we are not growing food on that land. Food prices go up, and we are all screwed.

4. PLA’s major American-based manufacturer is — ta dah — Cargill. Cargill is one of those huge corporate “farms” that have put small family farms out of business. Cargill is the second largest privately held corporation in the United States, and they also produce all that processed junk food we Americans are dying to eat, literally. You know why Cargill is making PLA out of corn? Because our federal government’s farm policy subsidizes the production of corn, skewing the price and keeping it super low for these huge agri-corp’s that grow the corn, make money not by selling the corn but instead from government subsidies for growing that corn. They then take that essentially free corn (to the corporation coffers anyway) and then make it into cheap, nutritionally poor processed food pumping full of high fructose corn syrup and sell it to you in the supermarket for a huge profit on their original investment.

Cargill’s Blair Facility in Nebraska, where NatureWorks PLA is made.

So, in closing, I say we avoid PLA and other bioplastics. It is probably going to be better in the long run, at this point, to recycle the plastic we have already created and keep reusing it. Better yet, look for glass or metal packaging, which avoids the whole debate.

PLA, #7, plastic #7, bioplastics, biodegradable plastics, biodegradable plastic, compostable plastic, Portland, curbside, recycling, recycle, recyclables, waste, polymers, polylactic acid, methane, landfills, composter, carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, Cargill, food, agriculture, corporate farms