Compostable Packaging to Save the
Environment?
We can all take direct action we are told, and dump our waste packaging food trays in our gardens!
This is not as irresponsible as it sounds. Readers of the United Kingdom newspaper the Independent have been told this as part of the paper's campaign against waste.
The theory is that compostable packaging will help the environment by using plants such as corn rather than scarce resources such as fossil fuel based oil, and the added benefit is that it returns the goodness to the soil.
It seems that a quiet revolution may be in the making which will go some way to reduce the scourge of non-degradable plastic bags and other litter which lies around forever and now sits on the side verges and in the hedges of every road and footpath, despite all local authority efforts at litter picking.
Not only that this packaging (especially plastic bags) causes injury to animals, uses up the world's reserves of fossil fuels, it also increases carbon emissions accentuating global warming in a way that could be easily avoided.
So let's take a look at the big supermarkets and what they are doing in February 2007:-
Sainsburys, one of the largest UK supermarkets, is introducing biodegradable packaging on most of its organic fresh produce and all its own-brand ready meals by the end of the year. These "plastic" looking trays will be made from maize and starch and are a compostable packaging which will break down in an ordinary compost heap. By using these natural materials, and as long as the energy used to create them is from renewable sources, the carbon emission they produce is neutral.
Marks & Spencer has introduced clear envelopes made from corn on its sandwiches and, we are told, has sold 132 million packs.
Tesco the largest supermarket chain in the UK has replaced its carrier bags with a degradable version – these are not compostable though.
A company called Belu has introduced the UK's first compostable water bottle. These are intended to be composted at large commercial composting facilities, and we only really make sense if a lot more of these sites are constructed. Many are now in progress or planned in the UK so that concern should reduce in time.
Asda it not reported to have immediate plans for biodegradable packaging.
Friends of the Earth, are reported to be in favour of the compostable products from Sainsbury's and Marks and Spencer, but consider the Belu's bottle to be impractical. As in the past they remain wary of plastics which degrade as in Tesco's carrier bags.
So can we really expect to be able to "dump our waste packaging food trays in our gardens", which really means compost these materials in a home composter? The answer is not any time in the near future, but if Sainsbury's plans do take off in the next few years and are adopted by all supermarkets, then yes, and we will all need to get ourselves a home composting unit and start using it.
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