Or has that compostable plastic already been considered?

[Hohofortherobbers]

If we need to stop using plastic bags and film wrapping etc for packaging, then why haven't we started using that degradable compost bag plastic we put food waste into instead? Should I be patenting this or is there a very good reason why not?

The national trust do!

I'm sure they're must be. We sell microgreens and have containers that look like plastic but are made of corn that are compostable

But the issue with compostable/biodegradable is that you still need the correct disposal.

You can't throw it in your compost if it has food waste on it.

If the bin men see something that looks like plastic in the food waste they won't take it.

If you throw it in the normal bin, it won't degrade because land file won't create the right conditions.

It is used, it's just expensive as it's sort of new. As a pp pointed out national trust cafes use biocompostibles.

I think to be classed as a biocompostible the product must decompose as quick or quicker than a piece of paper and emit no toxins during that process.

What Crustyloafs says + where do you think the feedstock comes from? My understanding is that there are serious concerns that farmland currently used for growing food could be converted to land used for growing feedstock for bioplastics, biofuels, etc. Less land for food = less food/higher prices.

because it just breaks down into microplastics
and takes five years to do so

moving away from all single use products is the answer

This article from Dezeen points out some pitfalls..
www.dezeen.com/2019/04/15/bioplastics-bad-environment-damage-arthur-huang/

The coop is already providing comparable carrier bags.

Correction. Compostable bags.

But the compostable bags take YEARS to break down

TalkinPaece, should I not be putting my food waste into those food waste bags then? The council give me them for my food waste bin. Does it mess up their compost?

The composting that the councils do is high temperature and they mill it all
but even then the bags just break into pieces
not actually rot

try rotting down one of the bags yourself and see

We noticed in Italy last summer that the grocery bags were made of the same stuff as the compostable bags. Seemed like a good idea.

Oh, genuinely surprised, I thought they wanted the waste in the bags. What about those alginate bags then that are used in hospital laundries, the bags with the seriously soiled linen which isnt unpacked and just dissolves in the washing, could we use them for packaging and film wrap?

Hoho check with your council, don't trust randos off the internet. Your council will know what their recycling contractors/processors are capable of, TalkinPaece will not.

TP, you're also out of date - the older 'compostable' ones are variable, the new starch based ones are fine. I've just turned over last year's compost and had none remaining. Too many plasticated tea bags though...

If it dissolves in a wash it would dissolve in the sea, and as it is seaweed after all then that would be problem solved wouldn't it?

spoon
Fair enough
and yes, I've pulled three year old teabags out of my compost heap

Yeah, about that....

‘Biodegradable’ plastic bags survive three years in soil and sea

Study found bags were still able to carry shopping despite environmental claims

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/biodegradable-plastic-bags-survive-three-years-in-soil-and-sea

Anything made of traditional plastic will just break down into micro plastic - still harmful to the environment, even if it degrades faster.

Only the plant based plastic is ok regarding disposal, but we still need to consider the resources and carbon footprint of making that to see how much better it is to avoid single use plastic even if it's plant based stuff. I'm sure the same is true of single use paper though.

www.ecobricks.org

I'm not sure how I feel about these and if it's just "off-loading" my plastic but one way to deal with one use plastic wrappers etc.

Our food waste bags are starch based I think. They take a while but do start to go soggy in water.

I saw about those ecobricks before and forgot about them crustyloaf. Beats plastic in the water or landfill I suppose! If the bricks are covered in clay to make a wall are they safe from leaching into the environment I wonder?

Where I live we have a very simple wast chain.

Recyclables go to the sorting centre and thence to be recycled
the junk from there goes to the CHP incinerator
along with all other rubbish

nothing in landfill
nothing reaches the sea

and the chimney at the incinerator could be retrofitted for CCCS