Myths about composting and recyling

Everyone, even me, makes three recycling and composting mistakes. First, toss an item into the wrong container. Second, throw away money (literally) by spending more because we believe the item is “greener”. Third, misalign intent and action. 

Wrong Container

“Dad, where do I toss this?” I looked at the trash can, recycling bin, and compost bin under our kitchen sink. Then I looked at the empty take out clamshell takeout container with its confusing and faint labels. I had no idea and I have two environmental degrees.

ChatGPT. (2025). Cartoon of a person deciding where to dispose of a clamshell food container at an airport. [AI-generated image]. OpenAI.

Oscar couldn’t help me either. I had stumped him recently. [Oscar is Seattle airport’s AI-waste sorting technology that is supposed to help me figure out where to put my waste.]

Let’s break down my kitchen dilemma. The clamshell container was white, looked and felt like plastic. On the bottom was the product name that included the letters “eco” along with a leaf symbol and a product number. I spent about 2 minutes Googling before I could confirm that the container was made with pure sugarcane with no PPE. Great. Of course by then my daughter had fled the room. I took it outside to the compost bin. 

One bad apple spoils the whole barrel. I thought about a recent function at our community center. The compost barrel was well-placed, well-marked, and lined with a green compostable trash bag. Great! I noticed it was half-full of paper and other compostable products. But in the corner, I saw a small, prescription-type plastic bottle and a foil chocolate wrapper. Oscar should destine that entire bag to the trash dumpster. 

In reality, errant items do end up in the compost route. Isn’t it harmless in small amounts? Think about what happens next. The waste goes to a commercial compost facility, which treats it with heat, humidity, mixing, and microbes for six months. Last summer, I ordered a truck full of compost, which was off-loaded onto my driveway. While spreading it around the garden, I noticed dozens of tiny colored fragments and threads. Microplastics. Just like the microplastic you hear about it in food and in people. An errant plastic bottle or chocolate wrapper may get shredded, but it doesn't break down completely.

The ‘wrong container’ problem applies anywhere in the system. The user may, with or without Oscar’s help, deposit a banana peel into the correct bin the airport, office, or community center. But what happens next? In these public places, I sometimes observe those who empty the bins combine everything into one container. Or, when I follow them outside (yes I have done this), I see all the bags go into the same dumpster because it happens to be the closest one. My favorite: the recycling dumpster clearly says ‘no plastic bags’ but instead of taking all of the used paper cups out of the bag (messy),  they simply toss the entire plastic bag and contents into the dumpster. It’s much easier and no one cares, right? Next time you are in a restaurant, office, school, or airport, watch this -- what do the staff do when they empty the containers? Follow the trash all the way from the user to the final dumpster. 

Throw Away Money

We ordered paper products and cutlery for our summer BBQs, Eid events, and birthday parties. Of course, we decided to do compostable everything— cornstarch-based plates, bowls, and flatware as well as unseamed paper napkins and cups. The product details confirmed they were all green and compostable. Then I read the fine print. It said, “containers are made from cornstarch, a renewable resource, and with small percentage of PP#5 that helps save our planet!” Huh. If something has PP #4 or #5 then it's definitely not compostable. Not even in a commercial facility. The product has to be certified under ASTM D6400. So we had thrown our money away. In retrospect, our intention was good and we can buy the right product next time.  

But I really wonder about small businesses or even community centers that spend more to buy something that is “biodegradable”, such as to-go bags, containers, or flatware. I was at a small, cheap restaurant (the yummy kind) and noticed all their plates and cutlery were supposedly compostable. But they did not have a compost container in the facility. Thats problem number 1. The second problem was the delivery: most of their customers were taking food to go. How many of them would know that these products were to be separated and actually separate them at home correctly if at all? Very few. So why does the business or community center spend extra money for no benefit? 

Good intentions, wrong pathway

We all have good intentions. Really really good intentions. We worry about climate change, but then, because we are renting our home or office, or already have a gas car, we rationalize that we can’t change our energy sources. So we look at the ‘sustainability’ umbrella and find something else that makes us feel better. In the 1990s, in my first graduate level environmental class, the professor asked us why we wanted to recycle glass? Conclusion: good intentions, but much more energy use. Today, if I care about climate change, then I want to reduce emissions but composting or recycling may actually be counterproductive and use more energy. 

It all depends

Everything is nuanced and depends. On the raw materials, the manufacturing, the use, the user’s disposal, and the ultimate disposal.

• Depends on your goal—is it to reduce waste or energy or water consumption. These are 3 very different goals and any effort you take to address one can actually increase the other. 
• Depends on what infrastructure you have— if you don’t have access to a commercial compost facility, why are you buying compostable materials and separating out compostables?
• Depends on your compliance rate— one rogue item in the wrong bin, each time, is really the same as 100% failure. This can happen at the consumer’s end (user into the container), or anywhere along the system (e.g., bag into dumpster).  
• Depends on the fine print of the product label—look below the headline. That will tell you a lot about whether the manufacturer is sincere or just trying to cater to an under-educated but well-intended customer base.

What Can I Do?

The four bullets above show how complicated it all is. No one knows it all. Use AI to ask about a product and its ‘greenness’. At a recent party we all were invited to release balloons into the air. “Don’t worry, they are biodegradable. We paid extra for them.” I cringed. In reality, biodegradable balloons marketed as eco-friendly may not be. Latex biodegradable balloons can take years to break down, especially in water or dry environments. In landfills or oceans, they degrade very slowly, if at all. Even if biodegradable, they still pose choking hazards to wildlife (birds, sea turtles, etc.). And they still end up as microplastic. Remember, for anything to break down, it needs heat, humidity, air, mixing, microbes, and light. Nothing in a landfill will break down completely and quickly as landfills are designed to limit breakdown and release of methane. Even a banana peel can take 30 years to degrade.

Success also depends on your level of understanding of these nuances. Not only is there a lot of confusing information out there, marketing experts know how to get to your credit card (see my March 15 post on fact vs fiction). All you can do is educate yourself, ask lots of questions, and think. But most importantly, make sure your method or means follows your actual objective.