Why can't we just compost EVERYTHING?!

Could our food, garden and packaging waste become truly circular?

To compost everything would make a truly circular system of recycling, regenerating products back to their natural state and completing the circle.  

When we compost organic material (organic material means anything that was once growing or living), we return organic matter back into the soil ready to produce more plants and food.  

When organic material ends up in landfills, rather than composting, it rots and releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Landfills create an anaerobic environment, with no oxygen and no composting. 

‘Everything’ is implying: food waste to garden waste to packaging waste. Think packaging, take away food containers and supermarket packaging. Items that already carry food and are a packaging convenience. More states are starting to ban single use plastics, and now we are seeing a lot more cardboard items being used.

Composting food at home is a great way to divert food waste from landfill, though to compost EVERYTHING (the remaining items that don’t work in home compost) this would need to go through industrial composting, which is accessible by a kerbside FOGO (Food Organics, Gardens Organics) collection bin. 

It would be wise to divert anything organic out of landfill via home composting or commercial composting, especially when organics is the second largest contributor to our landfills.  

At the supermarkets 

Supermarkets are shifting the needle on waste with South Australian supermarkets now switching to compostable fruit and veg carrier bags, making the next step even easier to divert food waste from landfill waste bins. These ‘compostable bags’ are accepted and compatible with the local FOGO (Food Organics Garden Organics) kerbside collection bin and have found to be a more effective way to get appropriate caddy liners they can then use in their home FOGO bin. 

Think of the possibilities of packaged food, especially spoiled or unsold food. And the fact that residents have to go out and source these compostable caddy liner bags has been reduced.

The Facts

Let's back up here and look at some of the problems with making EVERYTHING compostable. When brands start slapping on any old ‘leaf’ logo or make their packaging look like a kraft paper highschool design project, there is a lot of ‘stuff’ potentially heading to the composting facility which needs to be dealt with.  

There are Australian Standards for compostable products. These standards need to be met for an item to claim and brand their product as certified compostable actually meaning that they will compost. Products that have passed this test will be able to display these symbols with the relevant codes. 

Compostable products

 If a product is certified AS5810 this means that the product has been tested and to actually compost and break down in a home compost system. Generally, this will take at least six months to happen.  

Image source https://bioplastics.org.au/certification/home-compostable-verification-programme/

Industrial composting

If a product is certified AS4736 it will biodegrade down in a compost facility, where heat and oxygen is regulated. 

Image source https://bioplastics.org.au/certification/the-seedling-logo/

Take away containers, cutlery and plastic bags are becoming popular biodegradable items to replace single use plastics. Unless these items are destined to an industrial composter and the industrial composter accepts these items, they will eventually be filtered out and make their way to landfill. 

In real life

Let’s take the unassuming take away coffee cup as an example. If it IS a certified compostable coffee cup, how do the waste sorters at a composting facility (yes, they are real people) distinguish between a certified compostable AS4769 cup and a regular, plastic lined coffee cup? Best practice is to not accept these into the compost facility to avoid plastic contamination in the finished compost. Destination landfill.

Compostable and biodegradable products also present an issue within the recycling system as these plant based products do not contain enough recyclable material to be turned into recycled products. A contaminant is something that does not belong in the correct bin and interferes with the repurposing process. 

And compostable or biodegradable products that become litter may not break down. They  still present as litter as the conditions to be correctly broken down do not exist..   

Still not that easy….

In 2022, the NSW EPA implemented regulations on items that are accepted in the FOGO bin and have limited this to just food and garden items. No cardboard, shredded paper, teabags, compostable cups, paper plates or paper towel etc.  *Cue slight outrate from NSW residents for a quick turnaround in the regulation change.*  

In South Australia, sorting in a compost facilities happens after the composting process, allowing for screening of plastics and other contaminants after the process.  Some could argue that the contamination has already occurred with microplastics and PFAS being left behind.

So what is the answer? Sticking to just composting food and garden material is a clear, simple message to the public and delivers a clean end compost product. When we start to mix in other items, the messaging can become murky and confusing, leading to more contamination in the end product. 

We must aim to reuse packing of the items we can control rather than relying on something that can be thrown away as compostable. We now see supermarkets providing refill options for a bring your own container.

With more single-use item bans coming into effect in each state, its time to get the messaging clear when we want to resort to alternatives.

If we can’t eat it or grow it, it should it even end up in the compost bin?