Everything is biodegradable. Eventually all materials will naturally breakdown in our environment. However, the timescale will vary considerably. An apple may take a couple of months, whereas a nappy would take around 500 years. Consequently, labelling biodegradable packaging is meaningless. We need to know how long it will take to biodegrade and if any chemicals or microplastics will be left behind in the process.
Just because a coffee cup has been stamped with a pretty logo saying it is biodegradable it doesn’t necessarily mean it is environmental. If left on a beach or a garden compost heap it may take decades to disappear.
Greenwashing refers to products that say they are sustainable in their marketing collateral but actually are not.
It is important for us as consumers to ask further questions to understand what it is we are buying.
Such as, can this product be placed in a food waste bin? Will it degrade at the same speed as organic materials? Or will it degrade at the same speed as hard plastics?
A major concern with ‘biodegradable’ or ‘compostable’ packaging is that there doesn’t seem to be any facilities that accept it in London. Facilities that accept biodegradable packaging are commonly in Scotland and the North of England. To ensure the materials are broken down appropriately the composting facility must have specific temperatures and conditions.
Most of our food waste in London goes to anaerobic digestion facilities. Anaerobic digestion facilities will not accept compostable or biodegradable packaging. Packaging is recognised in the food waste facility system as ‘contamination’. Therefore it is removed by the mechanics (there is a hammer that pushes through all the food waste and captures any packaging items). It doesn’t matter if the packaging is biodegradable or plastic the facility cannot tell the difference. Therefore, all packaging is removed.
Consequently, most of this ‘biodegradable’ packaging is sent to incineration. It is burnt. It is not biodegraded. This is why the name is misleading.
Also here is a link to a blog about plastics (not necessarily the enemy!)
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