Biodegradable Plastic

Anyone whose followed my series of posts on Carbon Labelling, Plastic Bags and anything relating to green credentials, will know that I'm more than a little interested in the environment. More interested observer than environmental activist, I would say.

I like to do my bit aswell and the various bins outside the backdoor are testament to our residential recycling effort. Not everything's recycleable though and last week after getting a take-away, I ended up throwing about 7 - 10 little plastic food containers away. It didn't feel right somehow. Not only was I thinking guilty thoughts about the environmental impact but I was worried about how much room would be left in the wheelie bin now we're on fortnightly refuse collections.

"Surely someone can do better than this" I murmed, so I hit google to see what it had to offer.

Interestingly I came across a company offering fully biodegradable 'Plastic' food containers, the advantage being that you can throw them away with the food scraps and it all composts together. Nice. Who hasn't just thrown away a recycleable item before because it's too dirty (or your too lazy) to put it in the bin. Which reminds me of my pet hate about recycling, but more that later...

An extract from their website below

Camden Primary Care Trust and Packaging Environmental have collaborated in an initiative to replace all of the disposable food and drinks packaging at the Trust’s restaurant with sustainable alternatives. Whilst everything has been replaced with high quality plant based materials, the scheme has also involved the collection of all the restaurants packaging, and its disposal into the local commercial composting site. From burger boxes to coffee cups to salad containers, everything is being recycled back into compost and ultimately diverted away from landfill.
The compostable nature of the packaging means that the associated food scraps do not need to be separated out either, but can be collected together with the packaging and similarly recycled into compost.