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Compostable or bio-degradeable?

josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
in The potting shed
Does anyone know if there is any legal difference between these two terms?

Peter Nyssen use both terms to describe their bags.  Every autumn when I empty the compost bin, I fish out the bags that last year's bulbs arrived in, and they look no different.  I chuck them back in the top in forlorn hope.  If something is advertised as "compostable", I think it is reasonable to expect that it is at least showing signs of disintegrating after a year.  

The same goes for the food waste bags supplied by our council.  I stopped using them after having the same experience with those.  Now I line my food waste bin with newspaper and it goes in the compost bin along with the kitchen scraps.

Perhaps "bio-degradable" just means if you put it in the landfill bin, it will rot slightly quicker than the conventional plastics.
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Posts

  • JoeXJoeX Posts: 1,783
    Biodegradable means the plastic particles will become too small to see over a few years.

    Whether this is a good thing or not is another matter, but its an easily measurable target for industry.
  • JoeXJoeX Posts: 1,783
    edited October 2020
    Compostable, I believe essentially means it will biodegrade in a home compost environment.

    Things that are marked biodegradable but not marked compostable are likely to need other conditions in order to break down into tiny bits.

    Happy to be corrected.
  • edhelkaedhelka Posts: 2,351
    I would expect bio-degradable to mean just that, it decomposes on its own, eventually. Compostable - it makes sense to put it into compost. I wouldn't try to compost bulb bags (I can't imagine them having any nutrients or positive effect on the compost structure) but I would assume I can throw them into the garden waste bin.
    BTW I have exactly the opposite problem with our council food waste bags. They start decomposing in less than two weeks which is annoying.
    BTW2 I collect plastic shopping bags to reuse and I've seen the biodegradable ones disintegrate into small pieces in a dry home environment many times so I don't think they need any special conditions.
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I had some stuff in a carrier bag for a long time. When I went to pick it up, it disintegrated into little squares. Unless these squares eventually disintegrate into something organic ( in the old sense of the word), it seems to me that the little bits would cause worse environmental damage than an intact bag.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • strelitzia32strelitzia32 Posts: 758
    @josusa47 I'm glad you posted this, I had exactly the same question. I've just put a bunch more Peter Nyssen bags in the compost and now I'm thinking about taking them out. They're very clearly marked as "home compostable" and not for recycling, but I've got the same issue as you, they don't break down at all. I thought my compost heap was broken  ;) 
  • strelitzia32strelitzia32 Posts: 758

  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    "Biodegradable means the plastic particles will become too small to see over a few years."

    Do you have a source for that? It's not a definition I have ever seen.

    "Compostable" can mean various different things, but often that it will only degrade under certain industry conditions. "Home compostable" should mean that high heat or other special conditions should not be required. That doesn't mean that it will take a short time.



  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I'm not  sure but as  I understand it, micro particles get into everything and everyone. At least you can see a carrier bag and not swallow it or dump it in the sea. Have I got it wrong?
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    I must admit, when I received my Peter Nyssen bulbs in those bags last year, I was highly sceptical that they would actually compost down and didn’t know what they would do to my compost. They weren’t recyclable, we don’t have separate food or garden waste collections, so they went in with the normal household rubbish. Seemed completely pointless to me. The year before I got bulbs from Farmer Gracy, which came in little brown paper sacks that composted down quickly. 
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    Don’t even talk to me about Amash*te packaging!

    I was very sad when my favourite plant supplier, Le Clos d’Armoise/Brittany Perennials, closed down this year. Apart from the superior quality of their plants, I will be reusing their sturdy little plastic pots for a decade. They arrived perfectly nestled in straw. The next ‘best’ alternative (far worse quality plants) send theirs in hideous amounts of plastic. But at least it’s recyclable plastic.

    It seems to me, that, in the rush to be seen to be environmentally concerned, suppliers are rejecting perfectly good, relatively natural, easily compostable materials like brown paper bags and straw and touting dubiously ‘eco’ plastic alternatives that cannot be recycled nor easily composted. I mean, what level of embodied energy is involved in the development and production of these new so-called biodegradable packaging ‘solutions’?
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
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