Even though folk in the plastics and waste industries are innovating after the fallout from China National Sword, I am unsure as to whether the plastics component of our waste is heading in the right direction with respect to minimising landfill.
Major product packaging areas are becoming more difficult to recycle and new products using combinations of plastics, plastics and cardboards or plastics and compostable material are appearing constantly.
Let us look today at food and beverage packaging.
A relatively new form of plastic to the food and beverage market; polylactic acids, or PLA, are made from biomass such as sugar cane, cassava or corn through chemical reaction.
They are classified as number 7 on the resin identification code. They are technically compostable but only under industrial composting conditions, which is defined as 58 degrees with humidity and a processing time of 6 months according to the EN13432 standard.
This is impractical for Australia’s organics composters so PLAs are prohibited from organic material being delivered from kerbside domestic or commercial material.
Of course the recycling of plastics has somewhat constricted in recent years due to export restrictions. A plastic such as PLA (number 7) is also prohibited from MRFs due to it decreasing the value of the plastics received. PLAs require a different recycling process than all other plastics and would therefore need to be separated for reuse.
So, an innovative new plastic is being used for smoothie containers and the like however it is rejected by composters and recyclers and finds its only home at the local landfill.
It could be argued that perhaps the source material (biomass vs oil) is more sustainable however I am sure we would like to see the material recycled either mechanically or organically. Or perhaps even chemically if that proves to be a responsible option.
Turning to the ubiquitous coffee cup. It attracted arguably as much media as any other single waste stream in recent years and so companies such Biopak have replaced the polyethylene liner in takeaway coffee cups with a bioplastic they call Ingeo.
Now conditions differ from region to region however the coffee cup with the Ingeo liner is perhaps more palatable for our organics composters than the cold cup PLA products that require longer term industrial composting conditions and so can be composted with other organics.
I would encourage you to ask your Council if they can investigate the local composting of bioplastic lined coffee cups.
Of course, the lid is not cardboard and Ingeo film so it would need to be separated from the organics stream if indeed the composting facility would accept the cardboard/bioplastic cup. In the end, manufacturers need to be developing packaging solutions in this time of change that are easily able to be recycled or composted by existing solutions rather than requiring their own solution for recycling and reuse.
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