Guest Post by veterinary operating surgeon and overlord gardener James Roush / Garden Musings
Some years back , I ran across some compostable urine feeding bottle at a Starbucks in Seattle and , because of the mental rejection profoundly engraft in ProfessorRoush ’s academic soul , I thought it would be a neat idea to endeavor to wreak them back in my luggage and test their compost - worthiness at home . regrettably , the TSA must have deemed the empty bottle in my checked bags as a potential terrorist threat because the bottleful were not in my suitcase upon my arrival at home .
I was more rosy last year when I run into these licence compostable cup at a pizza pie parlor in Fort Collins , and I was able to at long last get them into my65 gallon Lifetime tumble compost binby sneaking them home in my automobile past the marijuana - qui vive sentries on the Kansas border .
These Eco - Product cold loving cup are , as printed on the cup , demonstrate by theBPI , or Biodegradable Products Institute , to be compostable in a municipal or commercial-grade compost facility . The BPI is a “ multi - stakeholder association of key individuals and groups from government , industry and academia ” that test products by written ATSM standards and certify them . Materials tested by the BPI must admit the power to “ biodegrade at a rate comparable to yard trim , food scraps and other compostable stuff , such as kraft paper bag , ” and they must “ decompose , so that no large plastic sherd persist to be screened out . ”
I placed the Modern cupful pictured in the top pic into my tumbling compost bank identification number on 2025-01-14 , along with mature compost and grass clippings . you may see at once above this paragraph several periodic photos lease over last summertime , a time span when numerous additions of kitchen scraps , grass clippings , other organic material , and water were compost in the pile alongside these cup . The cups did not disintegrate , as you could see , although they flattened and tore , probably from the repeat tumbling alongside smashed and operose clumps of compost . The constitutive material in the bin repeatedly became decent , black homogeneous compost with which any nurseryman would be felicitous .
This hebdomad , almost 11 month after the start of the experiment , I again opened the compost bin and found the cupful as indicate . Now , in paleness , I should note that the BPI web site state clearly that these products are not meant for home compost piles , but only for “ well - managed municipal and commercial-grade facilities . ” Home composters “ typically do not generate the temperatures needed to assure speedy biodegradation of this fresh class of textile . For this cause , claims are limited to larger facilities . ”
That ’s all well and dear , friends — I can bear that ProfessorRoush is in all likelihood a terrible composter — but should n’t we at least expect that now , 11 calendar month later , the ink would faded and illegible ?
moreover , while I ’m on a rant , what on the nose constitutes an “ satisfactory municipal deftness ? ” Does my local county recycling readiness , which routinely compost leaves and other materials , modify ? It is n’t listed at thefindacomposter.comwebsite printed on the cups , nor is any other adroitness within 50 miles of me . How many of these cup would actually make it into a “ well - bring off commercial readiness ” anyway , rather than just being tossed into the restaurant waste cans with all the other debris and taken to the usual county shredding readiness ? How much more DOE and chemical processing is involved in making these cups over the standard red plastic cupful that we have it away to make so much playfulness of ? Which is more probable to be recycle and have the least long - terminus environmental impact ? Is this simply more marketing misinformation to puddle the head of the the great unwashed ?
I ca n’t aid think that while compostable cup make us all finger unspoilt , this whole corroboration system of rules seems designed just to keep us from observe the man behind the drapery while we slurp the Koolaid of environmental ecstasy . It is only a thing of time before we ’ll hear offers for a devoid cartonful of these cups with every thousand C credits we purchase .
