Clearing up the compostable plastic mess
By 
Andy Extance2024-11-11T10:31:00
Rather than a potential triumph, the compostable plastics we use look increasingly like a tragedy. Andy Extance looks at the problems and seeks solutions
When the BBC’s Blue Planet II aired in 2017, showing turtles trapped in plastic debris and puffins feeding plastic to their chicks, the material became public enemy number one. Compostable plastics are among the solutions, yet they typically can’t go on your compost heap at home – aorse still, few UK facilities can compost them. Rather than composting, in the UK food waste typically goes to anaerobic digestion, in which bacteria mostly chew it up to make fertiliser and methane gas. But digestors can’t break down most compostable packaging. Packaging still gets included with food, only to be separated out at anaerobic digesters and then sent to incinerators.
The messy overall situation poses broader questions. While the challenges are strongly influenced by plastics’ chemical properties, they extend across society more widely. Many of this article’s interviewees think that clearing up the problem will primarily involve new, more carefully considered laws. Some are developing new technologies that could offer solutions. But others, like Roberts, think we already have some answers at hand.